


A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven

by DarkMoon26



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Caretaker Dean, Castiel is a Badass No Matter What, Dean Winchester and Feelings, Erotic Dreams, Fluff and Angst, God is Always a Dick, Guilt, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Erections, Internal Tangents, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, POV Multiple, Possible Disturbing Imagery, Pre-Slash For Now, Season 6 Fix-It, Season 6 and Season 9 Fusion, Secrets, Sick Sam Winchester, Slow Build, Smoker Dean (Temporary), Symbolic Dreams, Team Free Will, Temporary Amnesia, Theological Pondering, Top!Castiel, Touching for Comfort, What The Hell is Wrong With Sam Now?, character growth, clueless Cas, cuddles for comfort, more angst than fluff, unrequited pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:05:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 50,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkMoon26/pseuds/DarkMoon26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sky fractures and fire rains forth from Heaven's wrath.</p><p>Months have passed since Lucifer was locked back away in his cage, but the war isn't over yet.  Heaven and Hell are in chaos, angels and demons have taken their war to Earth, and a race is on to find Purgatory.  And underneath it all is the question "How thin is the line between Fate and Free Will?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One - Wild Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Like it says in the tags this story is a season 6 and season 9 fusion fic, but amusingly enough it happened by accident as I wrote Part One of this fic way back in season 7. So even though some aspects are similar, they are in fact different and weren't copied. Some minor things have been added to fuse more of season 9 into this segment, but nothing huge. There will be major differences. Some things will be happening sooner than others from canon and in different ways as this story is a divergence from canon as the tag says above.
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you all enjoy my fic and leave positive feedback for me.
> 
> Tags will change as the story progresses.
> 
> (See end notes for my chapter playlist.)

 

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name sake.

 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

 

**January 2011**

Exorcising the last demon that was tied to a chair in the midst of a Devil’s Trap, the demon cried out in a shriek as a cloud of dark, demonic smoke spilled out of the victim’s mouth and disappeared through the crack under the door.  Rufus Turner walked over to the unconscious victim and placed two fingers against her neck, checking for a pulse, but found nothing.  Cursing under his breath, Rufus hurriedly packed up all of his supplies and hightailed it out of the abandoned warehouse before anyone came to investigate and called the police.

Outside of the warehouse it was cold—below freezing—and snow rushed down from the dawning sky in a flurry, adding more inches to the already fallen snow.  Reaching his truck, he threw his duffle onto the floor and blew warm air into his freezing hands before rubbing them together for warmth.  Hopping into his truck he turned the ignition and cranked the heat before taking a swig from his bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.  Easing his truck through the treacherous snow and ice on the road, he couldn’t help but think how he was just getting too damn old for hunting and how he should have just stayed in retirement— _apocalypse be damned_.

Following the road signs, he made his way slowly over to the local hospital to further his investigation.  He had hoped just dispatching the demons he randomly came across would be the end of this particular hunt, but as he followed them to the warehouse they were bunking in he overheard them bragging about bagging an _angel_ at the local hospital and how they were planning on taking said _angel_ the next night to bring to the new King of Hell.

Rufus shook his head and snorted as he replayed that bunch of nonsense he had overheard from the two demons.  But still he drove on to the hospital even knowing that what they had said had to be a load of goddamned poppycock since angels being at a hospital would be the last place they’d be.  However, he needed to know for sure.

At the hospital Rufus flashed his fake FBI badge to the front reception and asked where he could find room 203— _yeah, the idiotic hell spawn even mentioned the damn room number where the_ angel _could be found which was mighty convenient of them to say_.  Following the directions from reception to the room number, he stopped just inside the dark room to see a figure lying in the only bed.  Reception called the patient a _John Doe_ so Rufus wasn’t even sure what he was looking for exactly if the patient wasn’t apparently talking.  Walking completely inside, he stopped at the foot of the bed to look down into a pair of wide, dark blue eyes that shown with inquisitiveness and wariness.  Guardedly, Rufus walked around to the side of the bed as the patient watched him like a hawk— _or maybe an owl since the man kind of looked like one with his ruffled hair and wide eyes_.

“So what’s yer name, boy?”  Rufus inquired suspiciously to the quiet patient, feeling every bit unnerved by those damned owl eyes.

The patient studied him with a very intense stare for a long while which made Rufus feel even more uneasy, before saying in a gruff voice like gravel, “I am Castiel.”

Eyes wide in shock, Rufus took a step back, nearly toppling over a chair as he swore and fumbled with his phone.

 

**May 2010**

The world was intact, it was whole.  The apocalypse averted.  Lucifer locked away in his cage once again.  It should have been a happy affair, a reason to go out, get shitfaced, and bang a few gongs, but instead it was full of hopelessness, sorrow, and anger.  Not only was Lucifer locked away in his prison but so was Sam—Dean’s younger brother—and Adam—his half-brother—and there was absolutely nothing Dean could do to save them from their perpetual torment.  It left a bitter taste to his tongue and a sick whirling in his stomach at the very thought.  If he thought his trip to the pit was bad, then being locked away in a cage with two very pissed off, very powerful archangels were sure to be a thousand times worse.  It would make his tour seem like a fucking cake walk.

It was dark.  Rain pitter-pattered against the sleek exterior of the Impala leaving streaming droplets on the windshield, wipers moved back and forth rapidly, yet still too slowly to collect all of the excess water.  Tires rolled smoothly over the wet, glittering black pavement of the road.  The only light in the car came from the occasional passing headlight.  Dean sat behind the wheel stoically, muscles tense, his jaw ticking, making his way back to Bobby’s house.  Castiel stiffly sat in the passenger seat, hands placed on his knees as he silently gazed out of the side window, lost in his own thoughts.

Dean’s eyes flickered over to the newly restored and resurrected angel of the Lord, his best friend, as a sudden flare of anxiety rushed to the surface that was hard to discern.  The emotion felt like self-fulfilling prophecy of one of the worst kings.  Everything screamed at him saying that this would be the last time he ever saw his angel.  White knuckling the steering wheel in panic, Dean realized he desperately needed to know what Castiel’s destination would be now—if he too was leaving Dean now that the war was over.  His chest constricted heavily, capillaries losing oxygen, making Dean feel like he was on the verge of hyperventilation.

Gaining control of his looming dread, Dean slightly shifted his weight towards Cas as he glanced over at the angel while he simultaneously kept his eyes on the two-lane black asphalt.  “What are you going to do now?”  He inquired, somewhat gruffly, trying to keep his raging emotions from his voice and in check.

“Return to Heaven, I suppose,” Castiel softly replied in his deep voice that sounded like tired rolling over loose gravel and sending shivers up Dean’s spine despite everything.  He stared straight ahead out the front windshield with focused, cobalt eyes as he answered, making Dean wonder what he could possibly be so enthralled with.  Dean mentally shrugged and even had to suppress the bitter smirk tugging at his lips in probable hysterics when the most feasible answer popped into his cloudy mind.  He supposed it was entirely viable that Cas was simply just counting the raindrops splashing down onto the surface of the glass.  Angels were strange in that way.

“Heaven?”  Dean replied, genuinely surprised, as the words finally swam to the surface of his mind.

Castiel tilted his head towards Dean without taking his eyes off of the glass and the streaming raindrops in front of him as he declared, “With Michael in the cage I’m sure it’s total anarchy up there.”

Dean slightly furrowed his eyebrows, Cas’ words truly rattling him and putting his suspicions to rest.  However, his easing suspicions left hurt antagonism in its wake.  “So what?  You’re the new sheriff in town?”  He accused in a louder, angrier voice.

Cas finally turned to look at Dean, a rare smile twitched at his lips, as an almost inaudible chuckle escaped.  “Yeah…I like that…” he marveled in a tone so soft it was at first hard to discern over the falling rain and the rumble of the engine, but in a stronger voice added, “Yeah, I suppose I am.”

“Wow.  God gives you a brand new, shiny set of wings and suddenly you’re his bitch again,” Dean viciously retorted with a bit of derision thrown in there for good measure, refusing to even look back at Cas for the time being.  He was seeing red, anger coursed up and through his veins at the rejection he was feeling.  It hurt to realize that Cas was also planning on leaving him.  Dean had known it was only a matter of time, because it was basically a fact that everyone left him, but why now?  He had just lost Sam.  Why did he have to go on losing more people he cared about?

Castiel gave Dean a look of bewilderment—cobalt eyes appearing grey in the darkness as they marginally narrowed.  “I don’t know what God wants.  I don’t know if he’ll even return.  I-I just…seems like the right thing to do.”  Cas ended his almost flustered explanation lamely with a turn of his head.

Dean’s knuckles continued to tighten around the steering wheel as his eyes narrowed with resentfulness, wanting to scream at Cas, to push him hard against a wall, grab him by his lapels, and to shout at him to not go, to screw God—that his home was _here_ , that it was _with_ Dean now and not with his so-called _family_ that had more than a few rotten apples.  Thumb stiffly tapping against the wheel, he redirected his anger with Cas.  “Well if you see him, tell him I’m coming for him next,” Dean growled, turning his head to look into Castiel’s disapproving, yet steady stare.

Castiel’s eyes were sad.  “You’re angry,” Cas commented in a soft, understanding statement, almost sounding deadpan unless you knew him.

Dean wrenched his gaze away, back to the road as he slightly shook his head in disbelief.  “That’s an understatement.”

From Dean’s peripheral view he saw that Cas was studying him.  “He helped,”—Dean scoffed—“Maybe even more than we realize.”

“That’s easy for you to say.  He brought you back!  But what about Sam?”  Dean angrily demanded of Castiel as his heart sped up—hot blood rushing to his face—while he searched him almost imploringly as if he along held all of the answers.  “What about me, huh?  Where’s my grand prize?  All I got is my brother in a hole!”  Dean bellowed in anguish.

Castiel stared at him with an intensity that made Dean uncomfortable as if Dean’s mind was laid bare—naked for all to see.  “You got what you asked for Dean,” he replied—Dean’s attention on him again.  “No Paradise.  No Hell—“ He paused, eyebrows lifting with emphasis.  “—Just more of the same.”  Dean roughly turned his head away, giving the road his full attention, quietly seething at his friends words because he knew Cas was absolutely, one hundred percent right.  “I mean it, Dean.  What would you rather have?  Peace?  Or freedom?”

Dean’s throat tightened, constricting in on itself so painfully that he felt as if he could barely breathe.  Words lodged in his throat.  A full minute passed as he tried to compose himself enough to speak, before he answered in a choked mockery of his own voice.  “And why is it that we can’t have both?”

Castiel sighed, his resting hand closest to Dean lifted a couple of inches and hovered there for a few seconds as if Cas didn’t know what he wanted to do with it before lowering it in a clenched fist in growing frustration.  “Dean, you know why.  Free-will does not garner Paradise on this flawed earth.  Your choices would have been plucked away.  You can’t have both.”

“Well, I think it’s fucking bullshit!”  Dean practically roared, slamming on the brakes before pulling off onto the side of the dark, desolate road.  He stared straight ahead blankly in stony silence, eyes burning with moisture that obscured his vision, hands still clamped vice tight on the steering wheel.  Blinking once, the tears fell from his eyes and splashed onto his freckled cheeks as he tried to control the heaving in his chest with forceful gasps of air.  The agony he felt over his brother’s loss was just too much for him to bear right now, too much for one fucking man to handle.  He felt a wide void inside of himself, yawing and eating away at his innards.  He truly, in that moment, felt like he was dying inside.  Sammy was gone, locked in a cage in the deepest depths of Hell, succumbing to Michael and Lucifer’s wrath—being Hell’s bitch—and now his best friend, his brother-in-arms, was also leaving, maybe even indefinitely, and he knew without a doubt he couldn’t allow that.  He needed Cas to help fill this consuming chasm in his chest.

Trying to control the onslaught of tears and the trembling in his limbs, Dean suddenly felt a calming weight of warmth drop down onto his shoulder.  He knew it was Cas placing a comforting hand in his time of grief.  Endless minutes passed before he finally got a tentative grip on his emotions and the tears subsided.  Scrubbing at his sore eyes in embarrassment, he finally turned back to Cas and locked their gazes, green meeting blue across the darkness.  Silence stretched on as Dean searched those intense blue orbs, finding not only sympathy and sorrow, but adoration and a willingness to do anything Dean wished.  These looks—these intense stares—that happened so frequently, often jarred Dean since he simply couldn’t fathom how this creature—something so pure and so powerful—could hold him so high on a pedestal, but at the same time this affection made Dean feel infinitely grateful for having such a friend, no matter how screwed up it may sound.

Dean swallowed the lump in his throat, never breaking his gaze away.  “Cas?”  He questioned in a quiet, subdued voice.

“Yes, Dean?”

“Can you stay with me?”  Dean inquired vulnerably, coughing uncomfortably and feeling slightly awkward for asking this of Cas, but for once in his shitty life he was being honest with himself and knew he couldn’t be alone, especially not right now.  “For tonight?”

Castiel smiled infinitesimally, features actually warm, still gazing deeply into Dean’s emerald eyes as he answered, “Anything you wish, Dean.”

Dean let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding and firmly nodded before breaking eye contact and placing his hands back on the steering wheel, shifting gears, before pulling back onto the rain-slicked road.  They drove in silence, Dean intent on the road, brooding in his own thoughts as Castiel continued to stare openly at him with his head slightly cocked to the side in appraisal.

As they approached the next town, Dean knew he couldn’t continue driving any longer and began looking for a motel.  Dean was just too distraught and bone-weary to go any further that night.  All he wanted to do was get drunk and pass out into oblivion.  After making sure there was a motel in the small town he was passing through with a lit vacancy sign, he tracked down a liquor store and stocked up on booze, before backtracking to the motel and renting a room for the night.  All the while Castiel was silent—hands buried deep in his trench coat pockets—staying one step behind Dean.

Entering the motel room, Dean eyed the place up warily.  It was a standard motel room, nothing fancy or whimsical about it—just two full-sized beds, television, and small kitchen table.  Dean ignored the suspicious looking stains that tarnished the carpet and walls.  With a grunt, Dean threw his duffle bag onto the bed farthest from the door and placed his bags full of liquor on the table before glancing up at the angel who stood the slightest bit awkwardly by the door.

“Are you just going to stand there all night like some creeper or are you going to sit down?”  Dean demanded, rolling his eyes, as he pulled out the chair opposite from the table, before walking to the bathroom in search.  Walking back out a minute later with two Dixie cups in hand, he found Cas sitting at the table—straight backed—gazing at him expectantly.

Twisting open the bottle of Jack Daniels, Dean poured two fingers of amber liquid into each of the paper cups, sat his ass down, and handed one of the cups over to Cas.

Castiel took the cup up reluctantly, eyed the liquid with a thoughtful expression, and then stated in a gravely serious tone, “Dean, I do not require this.”

Dean sighed, rolled his eyes again and swept a hand through his short, sandy hair, before saying, “Dude, just go with it.”  Coughing a bit uncomfortably, he raised his own Dixie cup in the air and silently acknowledged Sam’s sacrifice, before tipping the drink back and swallowing the burning liquid.  Up through the blue and smudge of his own eyelashes, he saw Castiel copy suit.  Dean nodded approvingly and added two more fingers worth of Jack into each cup.

Long minutes rang out around them that seemed to echo against the dirty wallpapered walls as they both downed a few more shots.  No words were spoken.  They didn’t need to be spoken.  Sam’s sacrifice weighed on their shoulders, a phantom that couldn’t be erased or salted and burned.  No words were spoken because what else could they really say about it?  What could possibly make this piece of shit situation better?  Nothing, that’s what.  Sam didn’t need to be acknowledged with words, just toasting him and remembering the good times was enough for now, because what more could be done?

The tick of the old plastic clock hanging from the wall above them sounded the endless minutes, droning on and on into eternity.  Dean already felt the delicious numbness and heat that spread throughout hi body, making his fingers, toes, and lips tingle, his head to buzz with white noise, his muscles in his neck and shoulders to loosen, and his chest to fill with golden warmth.  It wasn’t enough to stifle the grief completely, but it helped—a little anyway—for now.

“What are you going to do now?”  Castiel inquired out of the blue, repeating Dean’s earlier question back at him, shattering the silence in the room with curiously narrowed cobalt eyes and a slight tilt of his head.

“You mean now that Lucifer is back in the box, Sam is gone, and my shitty life has been turned completely upside down?”  He rhetorically said with bitterness.  Dean slammed back another shot of whiskey and averted his eyes, gripping the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now to be honest—“ Dean replied with a slight slur to his words.  “Sam wants— _wanted_ —me to go live a normal apple pie life with Lisa and Ben, but I honestly don’t know…”  His words trailed off listlessly.

“What don’t you know?”  Castiel demanded, perfectly perplexed with impatience.

Dean wiped a calloused hand down his weary, drawn face, before answering truthfully.  “I just don’t know if I can.  I mean, dude, I’m a hunter.  I don’t know if I can be anything else but a killer.  Do I even deserve that type of life in the first place?”  For once Dean spoke his thoughts, too tired to care, too tired to blow-off or lie, but it was always easy to do so with Cas.  It was something he could do with no one else, not even Sam.  Dean was accustomed to burying all of his shit deep down inside of him, trying to be strong, and not letting anything affect him, but Cas always listened without judgment.  Dean could show his vulnerable side to him when everything in his life was just going to Hell in a hand-basket.

Dean remembered the first time he let himself be truly vulnerable in front of Cas, a year-and-a-half ago in Cheyenne, Wyoming, while laid up in a bed at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center recovering from Alastair’s brutal attack.  It was when he finally found out that he was the one who started the apocalypse by breaking the first seal in Hell and Castiel told him of his fate— _The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it._   And he remembered the words he spoke back perfectly— _Well, then you guys are screwed.  I can’t do it, Cas.  It’s too big.  Alastair was right.  I’m not all here.  I’m not strong enough.  Well, I guess I’m not the man either of our dads wanted me to be.  Find someone else.  It’s not me._ That whole night changed Dean forever.  All of the puzzle pieces seemed to click into place and he knew then what a destructive force he could be.  He left that conversation confused, angry, full of self-hatred, and also hurt from the amount of betrayal he had felt, but for some reason he just couldn’t stay upset with Cas.

Dean wasn’t entirely sure how Castiel wormed himself so completely into Dean’s life in so short a time.  After Sam, Dean cared about Cas the most.  Dean supposed that it had to do with Castiel being the one who rescued Dean from Hell and leaving a mark on his soul.  But that wasn’t entirely it.  Cas was constant, someone in his life he could completely rely on with no judgment.  Castiel had seen Dean at his absolutely worse—torturing souls in Hell under Alastair and slowly becoming more and more demonic as time went on—yet Castiel never blamed Dean, never looked upon him in disgust even though that was what Dean thought he deserved.  Dean trusted him with his life.  It’s no wonder he didn’t want Cas to leave him, no wonder why Dean was having second thoughts about the apple pie life he could have because no matter how much he tried to deny it he was kinda in love with the angel even though he’d never admit it out loud and in so many words.

Lifting his eyes uneasily to Castiel—even as the shame and embarrassment consumed him—their gazes locked once more as Cas impatiently declared, “And why don’t you deserve a normal life, Dean?  You’ve been through too much.  You’ve sacrificed too much for a simple man.”  Castiel reached out across the table and laid a long, slender fingered hand on top of his own.  “I think you deserve that life, Dean.”

Moisture sprung to Dean’s eyes at his friend’s utter conviction and faith in him.  Swallowing painfully around the lump in his throat, he croaked out, “I don’t think I could ever be happy…”

“You’re stronger than you think, Dean,” Castiel responded succinctly in a hard voice.

Dean downed two more shots of whiskey.  “You have too much faith in me, man,” Dean muttered, shaking his head down at the table, as the tears finally escaped from his eyes again, splashing onto the faux wood-grain.  He quickly swiped at his leaking eyes with a frustrated hand.

Slipping his hand out from underneath Castiel’s, Dean laid his hand on top of his and enclosed Cas’ hand in his in comfort.  Refusing to look up at his friend in his state, he continued to drink away his feelings, straight from the bottle now.  Castiel enclosed his own fingers around Dean’s in a firm, yet familiar grip.

“Dean, why am I here?”  Castiel inquired in a quiet rumble, startling Dean to look up at Cas with blurring eyes.  Cas’ eyebrows were raised at his question, making him appear innocent—and his vessel less aged.  However, he didn’t let go of Dean.

“I-I just can’t…I refuse to be fucking alone right now, alright?”  Dean derisively spluttered, growing defensive at any unspoken implications.  He tugged his hand away from Castiel’s, before mockingly adding, “But if you need to go then by all means…” with an arm sweeping around the room.

Castiel canted his head, brows furrowed as he exasperatedly said with little patience, “I’m not leaving right now, Dean.”

Dean groaned and bitterly chuckled, shaking his head down at the table.  “Cas, you may be an oblivious Vulcan with a stick up their ass most days but sometimes…”  He let his sentence trail off as he looked back up at Cas, green eyes meeting cobalt.

Silence descended once again as they got lost in each other’s gazes.  Dean spotted that look of adoration and fondness again and found himself slightly flushing as he moved his eyes to stare at Cas, dried, chapped lips.  He licked his own lips—tasting the sweet burn of alcohol there—before flicking his eyes back up to Cas’ blue orbs.  Heat overcame his body that had nothing to do with the liquor and his heart thundered against his ribcage.

Abruptly, Dean tore his eyes away, downed another gulp from his liquor bottle, leapt to his feet and strode into the bathroom while muttering, “…need to hit the head…”

Closing the bathroom door behind him, he tightly grasped the edge of the sink countertop with both hands, trying to steady himself, as he willed the tightness in his pants to go away since this was definitely not the fucking time to entertain certain possibilities towards a certain angel of the Lord.  However, he desperately wanted to leave the bathroom, push Castiel roughly up against the wall and do all sorts of unholy things to him—to get lost inside of him.

Dean palmed his erection through his pants as a tremor of pleasure ran through his body.  He felt as if he were ready to burst, although he had felt like that ever since Cas came into his life one way or another.  There had been an instant connection between them that fuelled their anger and frustration resulting in explosive fights and sardonic comments.  However, the connection also proved that they wholly understood one another on a deeper, fundamental level.  Dean had no idea how many times he had taken his cock in hand and jerked off with only thoughts of Castiel in his mind—which had inexplicably led to some of the most intense orgasms of his life.  However, Castiel was off limits. 

In the beginning Dean had no idea of his feelings for Cas and only became aware of them after his expedition of going five years into the future.  It had been a fucking mind-fuck for sure to realize he had those types of feelings at all for a fucking angel, especially one in a male vessel.  But it really didn’t matter because Dean understood the status quo—Cas would be gone from his life, back in heaven, once the apocalypse was over, or dead.  The status quo kept changing though and soon Dean had been making promises to Sam about giving up hunting and living an apple pie life with Lisa and Ben Braeden and unfortunately that life didn’t include angels.  Not only that but Dean had no idea if Castiel even returned his feelings or if he was even capable of those feelings at all.

Guilt flooded him as he continued to brace himself against the veneer.  Here he was fantasizing about a goddamn angel of the Lord when he should be thinking about Sam.  Dean stared at his image in the mirror with blurring and whirling vision.  As he looked into his bloodshot, tired eyes more tears escaped and left tracks down his freckled cheeks.  The alcohol wasn’t doing the trick.  It numbed him for the most part, but he needed to forget.  In his drunken state he knew how easy it would be to just let go of all of his control and reservations and truly find out Castiel’s true feelings for him once and for all.  However he couldn’t.  He just plain wouldn’t.  Cas wasn’t an escape.  Castiel was _it_ for him— _as girly as that sounds._

Turning on the tap to the bathroom sink, Dean cupped his hands under the cold stream, collecting the water, before bringing it up to his face.  Repeating the action a couple more times, he turned the tap off and grabbed a hand towel to dry himself off.  Tossing the towel aside he stiffened his shoulders and left the bathroom, fully prepared to drink himself into oblivion, while simultaneously ignoring the way Cas made him feel.

What he found outside of the bathroom though, made him pause, breath hitching.

Castiel was lying in one of the beds, back against the headboard, legs stretched out before him, ankles cross, and hands clasped in his lap.  His trench coat fanned out at his sides.

“Dude,” Dean hesitantly said as he walked over to the liquor, took up a bottle and swigged it, eyes constant on Cas the whole time.  “What are you doing?”

Castiel’s gaze was level to his, eyes appearing completely indifferent as he shrugged.  It was clearly a practiced human gesture of nonchalance.  Dean wondered if Cas practiced in front of a mirror.

“Getting comfortable—you need to sleep,” Castiel simply replied, face stoic, but eyes intense.

Dean rolled his eyes.  Trust Cas to be comfortable in bed wearing a three piece suit, overcoat, and dress shoes.  If he ever had doubts that Cas was really mojo’d back up, he wouldn’t now.  Only an angel could be comfortable in that getup.

He continued to stare at Cas while he drank, heat thrumming all throughout his body—the sight of Cas laying on the motel bed very nearly undoing him—as he battled internally.  After long minutes, Dean sighed and gave up, too drunk to care and too drunk to wonder if this was really a good idea.  Walking over to the bed Castiel was lying on, Dean took one more long pull from the bottle before placing it on the bedside table next to the landline phone and dusty lamp.  Slipping out of his flannel and boots, he crawled into the bed, feeling like a total fool and a complete girl once again— _but why the fuck not?_   Edging closer to Cas until he was right up against him, Dean swung an arm around the angel’s waist and rested his head on his chest—Castiel’s arm automatically wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him closer.  Closing his eyes, Dean breathed in the familiar scent of him, the scent of glacial mountain air—pure and crisp.  Castiel’s fingers raked against Dean’s sandy hair, lulling Dean with comfort.

_Yep, he fully expected to wake up tomorrow with a fucking vagina._

Dean’s breathing evened out as he relaxed—muscles unraveling and face softening.  The comfort of Castiel’s touch always seemed to calm him somewhat, some days more than others.  Tonight he found himself completely pliable from a nearly empty bottle of Jack and physical and emotional exhaustion.  His fist gripped at Cas’ trench coat.  Not for the first time did Dean wonder if Castiel shared his feelings.  However he quickly stamped out that thought.

Looking back, Dean couldn’t even remember exactly when they started seeking comfort from each other—Dean obviously more so and increasingly so.  Dean thought it actually started during his separation from Sam—before the brothel, before facing off with Raphael, and definitely before he was thrown five years into the apocalyptic future.  He only became aware of it the day of the brothel visit though.  But then again, during that time away from Sam he spent a lot more time with Castiel on hunts and during that time, Dean really began to acknowledge Cas as a friend, a very close friend.  He knows he considered it long before then but sometimes he wasn’t very good with the uptake.  He often found it weird however—his responses to Cas—since he wasn’t a very affectionate person despite the fact that he was a very tactile person, but then again Cas was something different.  Dean acted unconsciously when it came to him, as if they were simply two magnets seeking each other out.

Dean’s lips actually twitched into something that resembled a light smile, despite the circumstances, but he was grateful for the respite as he flipped through the memories he shared with Cas during that time—of introducing him to different things like _Led Zeppelin_ and _Star Trek_ , sharing beers, and chilling out.  Dean couldn’t pretend that time without Sam wasn’t shitty, it damn well was, but he couldn’t deny that he also felt relieved and free then too.  It was bittersweet to say the least.  Dean wished that situation also reflected that time.  He wished Sam had just run off again.  It would have been a hell of a lot easier to deal with than his mind taunting him with images of Sam burning.

Too exhausted to do anything else, Dean sighed into Castiel’s chest as he listened to the rhythmic beating of his heart and focused on the relaxing feel of Castiel’s long fingers threading through his hair.  It felt good, really good.  It was almost enough to lull him into sleep, but Sam’s death was still too fresh in his mind and heart, as was the inexplicable knowledge that he may never see Cas again after this night.  Feeling his chest seize up on him, he pushed the agony down as much as he could stomach, trying not to let it overwhelm him again.

Breathing deeply in and out for long minutes, Dean’s urge to breakdown completely dissipated as darkness slowly set in.  In the cusp between waking and sleeping, Dean felt a soft press to the top of his head, but thought no more of it as he succumbed into blissful oblivion in the comfort of Castiel’s arms.

***

Castiel gazed down at Dean’s sleeping form curled up against him, smiling sadly.  Bringing his hand up he traced the line of his jaw before pressing two fingers to his forehead bringing Dean into a deeper, dreamless sleep.  Sliding out from under Dean’s weight, he stood, and looked down upon the sleeping form of the Righteous Man.  Squaring his shoulders with resolve and determination, he turned away from the bed and the sleeping man and disappeared into the ether of both time and space.

***

Dean awoke hours later to sunlight filtering into the room through the old and dusty plastic blinds covering the motel room windows only to find that his bed was cold and empty, as well as the room.  Castiel was gone and it might be for forever.  Biting his lip hard and clenching his fists into the sheets, Dean suppressed the overwhelming emotion that stemmed from abandonment and the sudden urge to smash everything in sight.  After several shots of whiskey and a steaming hot shower, Dean finally made his big, life-altering decision before heading back out onto the road to Bobby’s.

**November 2010**

_Fields of wheat swayed gently in the warm summer breeze, rendered gold in the setting sun.  The sky was in a fiery blaze of yellows, oranges, reds, with slivers of violet interwoven through.  Everything was in a golden haze—gleaming, warm, and comfortable.  Bees buzzed about and in the distance birds chirped and sang a melody that was like honey to the ears.  He sat upon a hill, underneath a small tree, and leaned his back against the narrow base.  The tree was rich with emerald leaves, plentiful blossoms, and lush, ruby red fruit in a unique shape—a pomegranate tree.  In his hand he held a cold bottle of beer that was moist with condensation, his hand rested on an upraised knee.  He watched the darkening sky until a star blazed into existence in an explosive, fiery blast—so beautiful it put the other stars to shame.  A few feet away from his foot, the grass rustled as a snake slithered through—full of purpose—as it moved its silky body to his arm, circled its way up upon his shoulder before it rested its coiled body._

_In the distance, a shimmering haze of golden light appeared.  Standing upon his feet he made his way curiously to the illumination until he was only a measure of steps away—an hour glass as tall as him stood erect, gilded in gold.  Crimson sand ran through it at an alarming rate, more and more falling and falling in urgency.  He watched for what seemed to be eternity, but seconds only passed and in his observation the hour glass turned lopsided, melting in upon itself in a grotesque squelching sound of liquefying metal.  Taking a step back he watched as the metal, glass, and sand collapsed onto itself in morbid devastation.  Ticking sounds in his ears and he is momentarily distracted from the hour glass by suspended clocks in the air, which were also melting, oozing onto the field of wheat and onto rocks and trees._

_The ground shakes, the sky fell in emblazoned stars, hitting the earth with shuddering impact in flashes of blinding light and power beyond reckoning.  Losing his footing, stumbling he’s—_

_Falling, falling, and falling through time and space, blurred in flashes of light, prisms of colors, into infinity.  Time stretched on—eons passed—never ending and never changing.  Pain never quelling.  Screams crescendo and echo into hollow vastness._

_Burning, burning, and burning through existence, life, pure creation in never ending torment—gnawing, ripping, cutting, clawing pain.  The heavens, the hells, and the earth bleed from it._

_It is hopeless._

_It is Death._

***

Gasping awake to the sound of _Hotel California_ by The Eagles issuing out of the alarm clock, Dean blinked the sleep from his eyes and calmed his racing heart and ragged breathing as Lisa stirred from beside him.  Running a hand up his chest all the way to his neck, Lisa reached up and kissed him, murmuring, “Morning,” in a sleep clouded voice before crawling out of bed, clad in a silk nightgown to the bathroom.  Lying on his back, he slapped his hand onto the alarm clock, silencing it as the red numbers flashed 7:02 am.  Images of a hazy dream danced through his head, tormenting and mocking him as he ran a lone hand morosely through his hair.

***

Normality was boring—boring as hell.  Well, Hell wasn’t exactly boring in the literal sense.  He’s experienced many types of Hell during his life and Hell was pain and torture, raping and humiliation, sorrow and tears and guilt and fear.  Just plain ol’ _Dante’s_ Inferno.  You get the picture.  Normality was just _normal_ and Dean had a love/hate relationship with it.

Dean hated waking up at the ass-crack of dawn five days a week to go to work at a boring nine-to-five job.  Dean hated the barbeques and the picnics and all of the normal people with normal lives he met.  He hated the forced small talk and all of the extra time on his hands.  He hated having to pretend all was right in the world when it was not.  He hated the nightmares and the paranoia and the post-traumatic stress that only seemed to have gotten worse in his down time following the post-apocalyptic months.  But most of all Dean hated living without Sam and he hated how much he missed Cas and Bobby and hunting in general.  He hated the constant tangents his mind took to, wondering how they were, what they were doing, etcetera.  He hated the _what ifs_ and the aching in his chest.

Every godforsaken day, Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he had made a mistake in choosing the apple pie life.  He’d question everything.  However, no manner of questioning would ever voluntarily make him leave.  He was invested in Lisa and Ben Braeden.

And despite his hatred of boring, tedious normality, he found many things he loved and enjoyed about this new way of living too.  He loved Lisa and Ben and he enjoyed having a real home and a home cooked dinner every night.  Dean enjoyed waking every morning to a warm body next to his side.  He loved playing dad for Ben and teaching him how to fix up cars and going to his sporting and school events.  He loved Ben like he was his own.  And he loved Lisa’s caring, understanding, and patient nature while he got back onto his own two feet again.  However, Dean felt as if something essential was missing that transcended the loss and lack of Sam.

Dean loved the Braeden’s, but most days Dean felt like an automaton, just going through the motions as he buried and hid his grief over losing everyone and everything.  At least he tried though.  He tried to be normal and to be the perfect husband and father, to have the apple pie life.  He got a normal job, cooked and cleaned and fixed things around the house in contribution.  He socialized and participated.  And in his spare hours—which were many—he tried to save Sam from the cage that housed Michael and Lucifer.  Countless books and countless aids rendered useless in his attempt.

No one could ever say Dean Winchester never tried.

***

Standing outside on Lisa’s porch, Dean gazed up at the stars in the clear night sky, nerves flayed to hell for the first time in six months, since he came to Cicero, Indiana.  He clutched a cold whiskey bottle in one hand and in his other hand he held a cigarette which he was puffing so furiously you’d think his life depended on it.  Smoke and warm breath hit the chilly air—tendriling up into the night.  Shit was starting to hit the fan.  Again.  He knew it.  He could feel it in his bones.  Not to mention that the news that came out earlier in the night confirmed it as did his own two eyes at this very moment.

Just the night before he dreamt of pomegranate trees, melting hour glasses and clocks—that reminded him of a fucking Salvador Dali painting—and serpents, and falling stars that blinded with angels’ Grace and fire.  It left him with an uneasy, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and a niggling at his addled mind.  It had been easy enough to brush aside this morning as just a bat-shit crazy dream, but after what he saw—well he wasn’t convinced, far from convinced.

While helping Lisa prepare dinner earlier that evening, the news reports started coming in on CNN from all across the globe of things the reporters couldn’t make heads or tails of—fiery comets in the hundreds appeared in the sky and fell to earth, creating craters and in the craters were dead bodies with burnt wings etched around each one, however some of the craters being discovered have been empty.  Most of the fallen had fallen around the Middle East, Russia, and China, but there had been fallen appearing everywhere—which inevitably left the religious and scientific communities up in arms, along with many others.  Thankfully there have been no human casualties so far.  Dean knew at the get-go that these bodies had once housed real angels and it scared the ever-living shit out of him just thinking about what this could mean and who the casualties were of.  But what scared him the most were the craters being found that were empty of any angelic being.

Dean worried and angsted that one of the fallen had been Castiel.  He was desperate to know what the hell was going on up in Heaven to cause such a massacre, but he was also, admittedly scared to find out anything.  What could have happened to cause even more anarchy in Heaven?  He wanted to call Cas down and demand answers from his old friend, but what if?  What if Cas never showed?  Would that confirm he was one of the fallen?

Dean felt physically ill, bile rising up, burning his esophagus.  He had only just lost Sam, what the fuck would he do with himself if he lost Cas too—his best friend and the only being he’s ever loved?  It made him shudder just thinking about it.

Taking a deep gulp from the half empty whiskey bottle, Dean tried to summon up the courage to call for Cas, just as Lisa walked out of the front door, wearing her snow boots, winter jacket, and long John’s.  Her dark hair was pulled away from her face.  Seeing Lisa walk up to him, he immediately dropped the cigarette he’d been smoking into the snow bank below the porch railing in shame.

Lisa stepped up beside him, laying a gentle, gloved hand on the back of his arm.  Her face was creased with worry, but a small, tentative smile itched at her lips.  “You know you don’t have to hide that from me, Dean,” Lisa softly chastised.  “We know and we understand.”

Dean flinched and took another swig of whiskey.  “I just don’t want Ben to see me like that…I’m already a bad influence on the kid—“

Lisa scoffed and rolled her eyes.  “Dean, please.  He’s not going to see anything he hasn’t already seen.  My sister smokes and so does my dad.  Plus, do you have any idea what they show on TV and video games now?”  She softly chuckled, before sobering. 

“It’s just…well, I haven’t done this since I was a kid…Starting back up again after so long…” Dean trailed off miserably, nursing his bottle. 

“I get it, I do,” she replied before lapsing into silence.  Sighing after a couple of minutes, Lisa looked at him with worry in her dark eyes.  “What’s going on?  Something’s wrong isn’t it?  Is it about _that?”_ She gestured up at the sky where two fiery _comets_ were slowly falling in the distance.

Grimacing, Dean said nothing.

“Those are real angels aren’t they?”  Lisa inquired sadly, but she already knew the answer.  She took a shuddering breath that was obviously full of fear and rubbed circles into his back, right between the shoulder blades in a comforting manner.

Dean nodded, but said nothing more.  Honestly, he didn’t know if he could physically speak right then with the lump in his throat and what could he even possibly say?  Lisa knew that real angels existed, but Dean never told her the whole story about them.  He gave her a very condensed version of the story, basically just the cliff-notes version.  All she knew was that Dean and Sam had been the vessels for Michael and Lucifer.  She didn’t know about the other angels and especially not Castiel.  He never told her anything about the angel who had raised him from Hell, rebelled for him, and died twice because of him.  And honestly, he barely even spoke of anyone else either.  He refused to name _names_.

Lisa gave him a soft, understanding smile before rising up on the tips of her toes to place a chaste kiss on his lips.  “Don’t stay out here too long, it’s getting late.”  And with those words she left him to go back into the warmth of the house and presumably to bed.

As soon as she was out of sight, Dean lit another cigarette with shaking fingers as he stared up at the fiery sky.  He stayed outside for he didn’t even know how long.  Hours, he thinks.  Either way he was out there long enough to finish his bottle of whiskey.  Good and drunk, Dean stumbled off the porch, raised his head to the sky and did something he hadn’t done in a long time—he prayed for Castiel.

He prayed and he prayed for what seemed to be hours, his voice hoarse and aching, but Cas never showed—no rustle of wings, no dirty, familiar trench coat, no nothing.  As each minute passed the pit in his stomach grew and grew and ached in what he knew was despair.  Old wounds opened and bled in devastation.

 

**January 2011**

It was fucking cold out—so damn cold that the frost bit at his nose and ears and chilled his cheeks to a candy apple red—cold enough to freeze his nostrils together, to ice his hair, and to freeze the air coming out of his lungs into smoke-like wisps in front of him.  Of course it probably didn’t help when all he wore was his leather jacket and a pair of working gloves while he shoveled the drive and the front walk and porch.  Snow fell in flurries around him as he tried to shovel them out but it was nearly no use, which meant that they’d probably all be stuck inside for the remainder of the day and on a Saturday at that.  Giving a weary sigh, he took up the shovel in defeat and headed back into the garage.  Once inside he leaned the spade against the garage wall before raising a hand to shake the melting snowflakes from his damp hair.  Taking off his gloves, he tossed them aside before lifting the tarp that covered his baby and climbed inside—hiding himself in the shelter of eerie blue darkness.  He needed time alone, time to think.  Taking out his flask, he took a drink of the burning liquid as he leaned his head back against the headrest and tapped a rhythm against his thigh with his unthawing fingers.

Two months had passed since that day in November when all those angels fell to earth, but Dean never gave up on calling for Castiel.  His hope dwindled every day, but he just couldn’t accept that he was dead.  He refused to let himself believe it even as the nausea boiled within his stomach.  However, Castiel never showed up.  Dean tried to hide his grief that kept growing every damn day, but it was getting harder and harder to keep his mask up and in place.  It was almost impossible now to hide behind the façade he had built.  He lost Sammy and that alone hurt too fucking much.  The loss of his little brother felt like someone punched a hole clear through his chest leaving a gaping wound, but now?  It was impossible to define, to explain the sheer amount of pain that permeated his being.

Things were bad.  Lisa was growing frustrated with him and things between them were tense. Dean sensed that worse things were coming on the horizon.  The slaughter of all of those angels had been a sign, he knew it.  All of his life he wished for a normal family, a wife and a kid, to get out of hunting once and for all, but now that he was so close to having all that he knew it was only a matter of time before something drug him away from it all.  He had a sick feeling in his gut that everything was about to end.  Something told him that things might become worse than last time.  The electricity that often crackled in the air made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand in a nearly permanent salute that left him edgy, paranoid, and high-strung.  The pure scent of the snow couldn’t even obscure the nearly constant scent of ozone.

Taking another deep swig of liquor from his flask, he sighed away the burning sensation in his throat and rubbed a weary hand down his face just as his cell phone went off.  Grumbling, he yanked his phone out of his coat pocket, looked at the caller ID, saw it was Rufus Turner and answered.

Five minutes later Dean was barreling through the thick snow out of the driveway in his white pick-up truck, slowly making his way through the storm and slippery roads to the hospital in Tipton.  All the while his heart hammered a panicked staccato rhythm against his ribcage.

***

Damn near jogging into the hospital, Dean bypassed nurses and doctors looking for the room number Rufus gave him over the phone.  It took him awhile but he finally found the right room.  Instead of immediately going inside, Dean grasped the edges of the doorframe with tight fingers, closed his eyes and bowed his head.  His heart was racing and little beads of sweat tickled the bridge of his nose and the flesh just above his lips.  He knew he was flushed red from adrenaline and nerves.  Taking a deep breath in and out, his face screwed up with emotion, before he righted himself, squared his shoulders, and placed a semi-shaking hand on the doorknob of the door in front of him.  Taking another deep breath, he gritted his teeth and quietly opened the door.

Dean hesitantly peered about the room, only to take notice that the room was like any other hospital room.  Two narrow beds, TV screwed into a frame in the top left corner of the room, chairs for visitors, bedside tables, private bathroom, and standard hospital machinery.  Quietly and hesitantly walking into the room, Dean saw the feet of a patient covered in a light blue blanket.  As each step brought him closer, the more he was able to view the patient until his eyes stopped on the patient’s relaxed, sleeping face.

A great big whoosh of air escaped his lungs and his heart stuttered.  Dean was only vaguely aware that he was shaking.  Lying in the hospital bed was _his_ angel, Castiel.

For several minutes he just stood there staring, his feet rooted through the bleached tiled floor, until he found his bearings and approached the bed.  Standing by Castiel’s side, Dean greedily gazed down at the obvious former angel of the Lord and drunk him in.

From the way Cas’ blanket was positioned, Dean couldn’t tell just by looking at him how much damage had been done.  However, from what he could see, Cas’ eyes were swollen and red, a plaster cast was wrapped around his right wrist and he was covered in fading yellow-green bruises and scabbed over cuts. Some of his fingers were splinted and he had an IV protruding from the inside of his left elbow.  His dark hair appeared to have at least three months of growth to it—curling around the bottoms of his ears.  Dean couldn’t help all of the questions floating around in his mind.  He wanted to know what exactly had happened to Cas to leave him in this type of state and why Cas was all of a sudden so obviously human and he needed to know how long Cas had been in this hospital bed so goddamn close to the town he lived in.  So far all he knew was what Rufus had told him over the phone. 

Dean didn’t know if luck was on his side or if those demons Rufus exorcised were just really that fucking stupid.

Laying a gentle hand on top of Cas’ unhurt hand, Dean took in a shaky breath that almost led him into a relieved chuckle when he finally spotted something strange about Cas’ wrists.  Dean frowned, brows furrowed together in confusion which slowly gave way to righteous fury.

“Excuse me, sir,” a stern, feminine voice called to him from the doorway.  “You aren’t supposed to be in here—” Her voice faltered on the last word, dragging out the sentence in a questioning manner as she saw Dean’s face.  “Are you a family member?”  She inquired, taking a couple of steps into the room with a look on her face that conveyed hope and concern, but also a hardness that told Dean she often took no-shit from anyone.

Anger momentarily forgotten, Dean gruffly croaked, “I’m a friend,” before demanding, “How long has he been here?” as he advanced on the nurse.

The nurse took one hesitant step back before standing her ground and replied, “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t release any of his medical history to anyone outside of his family—”

“Screw that!”  Dean’s voice rose in anger.  “I may not be Cas’ blood but I _am_ his family!”

“Cas?  Is that the patient’s name?”  The nurse observed, feet still planted firmly to the ground even as Dean’s anger grew.  “What’s his last name?”

“Wait?  What?  Hold up there.  You don’t even know his name?”  Dean demanded incredulously.  “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“The patient had refused to talk to anyone, much less give his real name,” the nurse explained in a clipped tone.  “He’s currently listed under John Doe.”

Dean’s shoulders slouched as he removed his right hand from his hipbone and brought it up to his face.  Rubbing a hand over his face, he swept it through his hair in confusion while simultaneously trying to bottle in the rest of his feelings that were simmering over the edge.

“Singer,” Dean answered in a smooth lie, “His name is Castiel Singer.”

The nurse momentarily looked down at her clipboard, and then gazed back up at Dean with confused eyes.  “Castiel?”  She repeated back to Dean, butchering the pronunciation so much so that she’d make Sam proud.  “Can you spell that for me, sir?”

Dean huffed out in frustration and rolled his eyes.  “C-A-S-T-I-E-L,” he slowly repeated with gritted teeth.

The nurse raised an eyebrow at Dean, not at all impressed, as she jotted the name down on her clipboard in satisfaction before heading to the door.  Turning around she professionally added, “I suggest that you contact his family to let them know that he’s here.  You have twenty minutes left for visiting hours.”

She made to leave once again but Dean called out a “Wait!” which halted her in her tracks, turning around to face him expectantly.  “Why is Cas strapped down to the bed?”  He demanded in frustration, the fury that he felt a few minutes ago returning.

The nurse chewed on her lip, looking uncomfortable for the first time since entering this room as a sympathetic expression crossed her face.  Sighing in resolve, she truthfully stated, “This patient is a flight risk.  He is strapped to the bed for his own safety.  He needs to fully recover, not make his injuries worse.”

“I want them off!”  Dean growled, which only led the nurse to raise an eyebrow at him before hightailing it out of the room once and for all.

Turning back around, he grabbed a chair and made his way back to Castiel’s bed.  Sitting down, Dean took up Cas’ left hand without an ounce of hesitation.

Stirring awake, Cas opened tired, swollen eyes, blinking away at the sleep.  Calmly, he turned his head and gazed at Dean intently for several minutes before canting his head slightly and hoarsely questioned, “Why are you crying Dean?”

“I’m not—” Dean started to protest when he realized he did indeed have wet eyes.  Embarrassed, Dean couldn’t help but wonder when he had become such a girl?  Coughing uncomfortably, he averted his eyes before bringing them back up to meet Cas’ cobalt stare.  “God, man, I thought you were fucking dead,” he choked in relief.

Cas only slightly smiled before falling back in unconsciousness.

***

_Brother…_

The whispered word jolted Sam awake, teetering at the brink of his mind like a long forgotten memory—a dream from eons ago.  The word spoken with familiarity and awe, making the simple, two syllable word sound like a homecoming.  But the word, the homecoming was all sorts of wrong, it didn’t add up.  In any other circumstance his mind would go directly to his older brother, Dean, but not this time.  His subconscious screamed _NO!_

It just didn’t compute, but then again nothing much made sense lately, not since he awoke in Stull cemetery with rain plunging down upon his body in cold sheets.

Things were different to say the least now.

Heaving himself out of bed despite his overwhelming exhaustion, he dragged himself to the shower.  Emerging out of the hot steam sometime later, Sam dressed before he hauled his feet out the door, down the hall, and descended the stairs.

“Hey Bobby, have you found…?”  Sam’s sleep muffled voice trailed off as he entered the study only to find Bobby leaning forward and gripping the edge of his desk with both hands.  His cap was tossed aside next to a bottle of whiskey and some reference books and he appeared a little green around the gills.  “What’s going on…?”  Sam warily inquired as he slowly approached Bobby.

Bobby groaned out a sigh, retrieved his hat and placed it back onto his balding head before turning to Sam. “I just got a phone call—“

Dread started to pool in Sam’s stomach in a slow burn of acid.  “From who?”

“Yer damn fool of a brother, that’s who!”  Bobby growled out.  “He found himself into a mess in Indiana.”

“What type of mess?”  Sam slowly demanded with a bit of hesitance as he worried his bottom lip in anxiety.

Unscrewing his whiskey bottle, Bobby poured himself a drink even though it was barely ten in the morning.  “What other type of mess but a supernatural mess?”  He rhetorically ground out through his barred teeth as he took a drink.  “An angel mess more specifically.”

Deflated and exhausted, Sam dropped down onto the couch, propped both elbows onto his jean clad knees and ran his hands through his overlong hair.  “Dammit,” he breathed in exasperation

“You got that right,” Bobby snorted with an utter lack of amusement as he walked around his desk, sat down, and began rummaging through the clutter of books and papers that obscured the wood grain surface.  After a minute he emerged from his search with his address book in hand.

“So what happened?  Tell me.  Was it Castiel?” Sam pushed after another minute of silence.

“Yeah,” Bobby grunted before looking back up at Sam.  “The idgit got himself into some deep shit.  He’s in the hospital.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose in bewilderment.  “The hospital?”

“He’s human now,” Bobby shortly responded.  Taking another drink of whiskey, he slammed the glass tumbler down before he grabbed up his phone and stood up.  “To make a short story even shorter, Dean’s wit him and needs me to get Castiel all of the official hoop-la taken care of because the docs are asking questions and they won’t tell Dean a damn thing.  He was right ornery over the phone.”

Leaving the room to make his phone calls, Sam quietly sat.  Underneath Sam’s calm exterior, he was upset, almost livid at this news.  Sam knew he shouldn’t be, knew logically that it had all been a matter of time, but he was.  There was no denying it.  And the most frustrating part was that Sam wasn’t nearly as upset for his brother undoubtedly being back in the game but for himself instead.  For purely selfish reasons.

Sam kept telling himself repeatedly that the only reason he didn’t go to Dean once he was resurrected was to protect Dean, to give Dean his chance at a normal apple pie life, but he knew it was all just a farce, a lie.  Sure, he wanted Dean to be happy with a wife and kid but it went deeper than wanting that for his brother.  In truth he was scared—terrified of what his brother would see when he looked into Sam’s eyes now.

Sam had always been a freak.  The boy with the demon blood.  He had grown to accept it, but he couldn’t accept what he had become now, because he had come back from the pit wrong.  He felt like a whole different person at times and he didn’t want Dean to see him like this.  Dean would notice right away that something was off about him, that something wasn’t right and Sam knew he couldn’t handle more of the mistrust, the suspicion.

Hell, even Bobby noticed the change in Sam, but they ran every goddamn supernatural test they knew and every single one of them told them that Sam was normal and so Bobby just concluded that the _off-ness_ about Sam was just an effect from drinking gallons of demon blood and letting Lucifer wear him to the prom.  He even thought that being in the cage with Lucifer and Michael probably had the effect to change him too.  However, Sam had his doubts.

Not only did he not remember being in Hell with Lucifer, but ever since he was resurrected things have been strange.  Most of the time he’s convinced he has a split personality.  Often he lapses into black moods which resulted in him shutting himself away for days on end, affecting his job with negative consequences.  Sam has also been experiencing harsh and violent outbursts with no provocation at all and he’s been suffering from hallucinations that seem all too real, like long forgotten voices and people and memories.  The hallucinations and nightmares played like déjà vu to a disturbing degree.

Sam was wholly reminded of the stories he’s heard about people getting heart transplants and suddenly taking up drinking or smoking or acting completely out of character or experiencing memories that weren’t their own.  The only difference was that Sam didn’t have any type of transplant.  Sam couldn’t help but wonder if the thing that pulled him out of Hell did something to him, but he couldn’t figure out what or the reasons behind such an act.

“ _Balls!_ ”  Bobby exclaimed, snapping Sam out of his reverie as he walked back into the library, phone in hand, pressed against his chest to stifle any background noise.  “Do you have any pictures of Castiel, Sam?  I need one for his documents,” Bobby ground out, clearly annoyed at this setback.

Sam was about to tell Bobby that he didn’t before he hesitated and pulled out his cell phone, suddenly remembering a night that seemed so long ago.  “Yeah, Bobby,” Sam began softly, “Hang on…I have some pictures saved from….before…” Sam’s voice trailed off as he looked through his pictures from before he went to Hell.

Stopping on one particular picture, Sam held up his phone to Bobby.  Appraising the picture for a moment with squinted eyes, Bobby lifted his phone back up to his ear and gruffly said, “Yeah, we got one…We’ll send it over in a minute…How long?  No!  That ain’t good eno—“ Bobby stood there silently for a minute, obviously having been cut off, nodding his head in aggravation to what the person on the other end of the line was saying.

“Fine, tomorrow morning,” he rumbled in response before hanging up and tossing the phone onto his cluttered desk, nearly knocking over the cheap whiskey bottle that was teetering on the edge of a thick, leather bound tome.  Rubbing at his head, Bobby nearly dislodged his baseball cap as he did so, before turning back to Sam.  “Send the picture to my phone so I can finish with this bullshit.”

Sam did as Bobby told him, but before he could escape from the image of the picture, something stopped him and he couldn’t pry his eyes away from the small image.  The tiny picture was of Castiel and Dean taken from in a brightly lit diner after leaving the bar.  Dean was shitfaced as always with a goofy smile on his face, arm thrown around Castiel’s shoulders and turned slightly towards the angel.  Castiel was faced more straight-on than Dean, head held high, but a small smile lingered on his lips and his eyes were turned slightly to Dean’s.

Sam remembered this night.  It had been a few days, maybe a week before they discovered Bobby’s wife, Karen, was alive again because of the horseman Death.  They had been celebrating Sam’s recovery that night—Dean, Castiel, and him.  Sam recalled that it was a good night, a night where everything was forgotten and they just had a good time.  That night Sam had been laughing and drinking and he had pulled his phone out to take pictures since they rarely ever had the opportunity or time for them.  Sam had taken a lot of pictures by the time the bar closed and they waltzed into a twenty-four hour diner for an after bar meal.  While waiting on their pancakes, Sam caught Dean and Castiel looking at each other in a way that always confused him and made him uncomfortable, like he was looking in on an intimate moment, but that night Sam thought it funny so he had taken his phone out once again to capture the image to make fun of Dean later for, but at the last second Dean realized what Sam was up to, swung an arm around Castiel and posed for the picture.

Eyes burning and blurring, Sam blinked rapidly and exited out of his phone, tossing it next to him onto the threadbare couch.  Pressing the balls of his hands against his eyes, he took a few deep breaths before moving them away and up to his hair to comb back out of his face.

“So are you coming to Cicero wit me in the morning?”  Bobby inquired from his desk as he poured himself another drink.

Sam looked over at Bobby and studied him for a long minute before saying, “I don’t think so.”

Bobby sighed and nearly rubbed his cap off of his head again wearily.  “Like it or not, Sam, yer brother is back in the game.  Whatever did that to Castiel will probably try to track him down and when that happens the thing will also find Dean.  Stay or go, I’ll still tell Dean that you’re alive.  He has a right to know his own brother is topside once again.”  He replied in his growling voice.  “I don’t enjoy lying to him about this boy, but I agreed to it because I wanted him out of this line of work.  Now that he is again…deals off.  He deserves to know the truth now.”

Sam closed his eyes tightly and gripped his legs right above the knees.  “God, Bobby…How am I supposed to deal with this?  He’ll know something is up with me right off—”

“You’re going to bury it, that’s what,” Bobby said in a low, firm voice.  “You’re going to bury it and hope to God that it doesn’t emerge, because no matter what, Dean’s gonna need you right now.  He’s gonna need you sane.”

Sam’s eyes snapped open.  “And how is it helping him to spring my resurrection on him?  He’s going to me pissed off and hurt.  He’ll want an explanation I can’t give him!  I don’t think that will be helpful in this situation.”

Bobby polished off his whiskey and glared at Sam from across his desk.  “Now you listen to me boy, and listen good.  You are coming wit me and that is that.  How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out you’ve been alive, staying with me, and didn’t even come to check on him or Castiel?  That will make a whole lot of things worse for you and for him, so you’re packing up your bag and coming wit whether you like it or not!”

Sam sighed in resignation.  He knew Bobby was right, but that didn’t stop him from having his doubts and suspicions.  He knew he couldn’t just bury his problems because he’s tried and failed over and over again, however he knew this was something that needed to be done.  Dean did have a right to know he was alive again and truthfully Sam missed his brother a lot.  Sam guessed it was definitely time to face his fears head on, which was something he should have done long ago but avoided.

Lifting up his head, a small, sad smile played on his lips and he nodded as his vision wavered and he collapsed, dead to the world as a voice whispered _Brother…._

***

Jerking awake from where Dean had rested his head on Cas’ hospital bed, he opened blurry eyes to see that he was nearly face to face with the ex-angel.  Sitting up, Dean rubbed as his eyes, clearing away the sleep, before glancing at his wrist watch to find that he had been at the hospital for eight hours and that Dean had been sleeping for five of those.  Dean wondered if Cas had woken up during any of the time he had been asleep.  He was tempted to wake his friend up but thought better of it even though his curiosity and concern was slowly getting the better of him.  He needed to know what had happened.  However instead of waking Cas he laid a hesitant hand on Cas’ arm, right above the stupid brown leather straps holding him in place around his wrists.

Dean hated the sight of them and was royally pissed off that they thought they had a right to restrain Castiel.  He really couldn’t understand why the doctors did this to him especially when they were already—very obviously—sedating him.  Dean wanted to take out his pocket knife and cut the straps but he was already warned that if he touched them he would be escorted off the premises.  And he wouldn’t stand for that after all of the charming he did in order to stay by Cas’ side past visiting hours.

“Dean?”  A soft and familiar feminine voice questioned at the door to the room.

Quickly he removed his hand as if he was caught doing something wrong, as he looked up to find Lisa walking through the door with a cup of coffee in her hand.  Taking the offered cup, Dean popped the lid off the paper cup and took a drink of the stale coffee, burning his tongue in the process.  “Thanks,” he grunted voice still cloudy with sleep.

Rubbing his back in soothing circles between his shoulder blades, Lisa asked, “How is he doing?”

Sighing, Dean shrugged Lisa off and stood up to stretch his aching, stiff limbs.  “Honestly don’t know, Lis.  The doctors won’t tell me anything and he hasn’t fully woken up yet since I got here.”  He walked around Lisa to the other side of the bed.

Lisa glanced down at Cas with pierced lips before nodding.  There was obviously something bothering her and Dean could guess what.  He wasn’t an idiot; he knew he would have to explain who Cas was now since he had never uttered a word about him before to her.  He just didn’t need this conversation now.  And to his luck Lisa’s severe expression softened to one of sympathy and didn’t question him any further.  He was grateful for her tact in this situation, because it wasn’t the right time or place.

Lisa remained quiet for another minute before telling Dean she was headed back home and that she’d bring him some stuff from the house and dinner later on and then she kissed him softly on the cheek and left with barely a look to Dean.  Her eyes stayed focused on Castiel the whole time.

Sighing a deep breath of relief that Lisa left with no awkward questions he loathed to answer, he walked back around Cas’ hospital bed once more before taking his seat in the chair beside the bed, keeping vigil next to his silent, still form.  Taking another sip of his disgusting, weak coffee, he set the paper cup on the floor beside his chair out of reach of anything important just in case it spilled.  Reaching out, he placed his hand on the other man’s arm in the exact same spot as before and prayed that he would wake up soon.  He needed Cas to wake up and tell him what happened and to reassure him that he was fine for all intent and purposes.  However, something told him it wouldn’t be that easy because nothing was ever easy in his fucked up life.  It was nothing but blinding pain with no reprieve.   

Dean was just glad that Cas was still alive, because he just knew he couldn’t have handled losing Cas too.  Sam’s sacrifice was hard enough to deal with.  He wasn’t sure when or how it had happened, when Castiel had become the second most important person, well angel, no ex-angel,  in his life for the past couple of years, but he had.  Cas just wormed himself in there.  Cas was his best friend hands down, the angel who had seen him at his worst— practically a demon already—and put him back together again without judgment or hate or disgust.  He saved him from Hell and continued to save him again and again.  And sometimes Dean thought Cas may even know him better than Sam ever could.  Dean could just be himself around him, didn’t have to hold up his wall or pretend, and Cas was the only person that he could be truly vulnerable around and all of those things were such a huge relief for him.  Pretending and shoving everything down was just plain exhausting and he didn’t even realize how exhausting it was until he actually had someone to listen to him.  Dean didn’t know why he felt he could be more open around Cas, there really wasn’t any explanation, but he could.

And even if he could never express his words verbally, he was forever fucking grateful to have Cas as his best friend and was even more damn grateful that he was still around, be it angel or not, because to him that really didn’t matter.

***

Seconds, minutes, and hours ticked on by as Dean sat by Cas’ bedside waiting for something to happen, some change, but nothing did.  The beeping of the heart monitor was slowly driving him insane and the room felt hot and claustrophobic.  The time passed in a dizzying whirl of slow motion.  The sun set and the moon rose, darkening the shadows in the small room and he was growing fidgety from being cooped up for so long, however, he knew he wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —leave.  He was just too terrified to do so.  Dean knew he would never be able to forgive himself if he left Cas’ side and something bad happened.  He wouldn’t do that.  As he waited for Cas to wake up Lisa showed up again with Ben to visit with him.  She stayed for an hour, not saying too much of importance—her ever observant eyes looked keener than ever—so he mostly visited with Ben.  Lisa had brought him dinner, a bag with two days worth of clothes, his laptop, and some necessities like his toothbrush and toothpaste.  He knew he’d eventually have to make his way back to Lisa’s to shower, but he knew that wouldn’t happen until Cas woke up and told him everything and Bobby got there.  He felt a bit guilty about not being more present for Lisa and Ben right now and for calling ahead and taking his vacation days at work but he really didn’t have a choice.  He wasn’t going to let Cas wake up alone again while he was stuck in this place.

After Lisa and Ben left for the night, promising to come back again the next day, Dean took out his laptop and surfed the web—searching for anymore news about the _Fallen_.  It was a routine he had now—more like an obsession—that started after the WWAM or World Wide Angelic Massacre—a term he himself had coined—a couple of months ago.  He was keeping his ear to the ground, looking for any mention of more killings but on a smaller scale or anything that may have connected to the fallen angels, especially the ones who had survived the fall.  So far, Dean had found at least one fiery _comet_ sighting per day. 

The news media didn’t really know what to make of it, claiming that it must be a hoax of some kind from some kind of religious cult, but a worldwide cult?  Yeah, right.  Even then that doesn’t explain the _comets_.  They were just trying to placate the public as were the politicians, but that didn’t stop the uprising of religious propaganda, Televangelism, crazies making a spectacle, or an increase in violence and vandalism in the bigger towns and cities out of fear.  People knew something was _wrong_ out there even if most of them would never allow themselves to even remotely believe in the truth.  Dean knew better though, knew angels existed, and knew something was terribly wrong up _there_ and needed to know what.

He tried to ignore it all at first, to keep his head in the game—to be a normal family man—but he often found himself debating on if he should just pack up and leave Lisa and Ben and continue hunting, to try to gain answers from beings that might know what the fuck was going on, but so far he just couldn’t take that step out the door.  He cared for Lisa and Ben and he didn’t want to lose them, but he also knew that there could be a time where something came after him and got them instead, however Lisa’s house was practically a fortress now and he had taught Lisa the fundamentals if something actually tried to get in or tried to grab her or Ben off the street.  Lisa had also gotten an anti-possession tattoo and Dean had given Ben an anti-possession pendant.  He had a huge pit in his stomach though that told him he’d have to leave soon—that he may be needed soon—because shit was about to hit the fan in a colossal way.  Although, Dean knew if something really bad was going on Bobby would let him know just to make sure he was ready for the shit-storm.

Eyelids growing tired and gritty, Dean shut down his laptop and placed it back into his duffle bag and crammed it into a corner where it was out of the way.  Sitting back down, he forced himself to keep watch.  Finally, at about two in the morning, a silent twitch awoke Dean from a fitful, but light sleep.  Jerking to attention, he observed Cas more closely to see if he was finally waking up.  His bandaged hand closest to Dean was moving and his chapped lips parted and then closed again before his eyes flickered open.

Dean warily smiled as he placed a hand on his arm and imploringly said, “Cas?”  But instead of a normal response, he got a violent and what seemed like a traumatized response.

Castiel’s eyes flew open wide as he let out a whimpering gasp before he jerked back and his eyes rolled up into his head.  Remarkably the strap holding Cas down closest to Dean broke away and he wildly whipped Dean across the face.  Recovering from the attack in shock, Cas began to hoarsely yell and flail his limbs.  The realization that Cas was actually still asleep swept through his mind, before Dean jumped up and grasped Cas’ shoulders in a firm grip, trying to restrain him as best as he could but that only made Cas struggle harder against the force.  Turning his head away from Cas to the door, Dean yelled over his shoulder hoping that one of the nurses or more would hear.

Struggling with Cas for another minute, Dean lost his hold on Cas just as he was socked across the face again, making Dean lose his footing and fall to the floor.  Gritting his teeth against the pain that burst out from the side of his head, he got his bearings, and righted himself just as a bunch of nurses frantically filed through the open door, pushing him aside, away from Cas and almost out the door.  Peering past the three women and one man who were convening around the bed, trying to restrain and calm Cas down, Dean saw one of the nurses stick a needle in Castiel’s arm that quickly calmed him down, slumping into himself.

As Castiel relaxed back into his bed, one of the nurses turned to him with a stern expression on her face as the rest of the nurses made Cas more comfortable and checked his vitals and the machines making sure everything was tiptop.  “I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside, sir.”

“B-but—” Dean stammered in disbelief, gesturing over to Cas.

“No buts,” the nurse answered succinctly.  “Just go.  We’ll let you know when you can see him again.  While you wait you may want to see another doctor to get your face checked out.”

Momentarily thinking that the nurse was being rude and making a bad joke about his appearance, Dean glared at her before remembering that Cas had hit him in the face not once but twice.  Grunting, Dean jammed his balled up fists into his coat pockets and grudgingly sauntered out of the hospital room to go clean himself up. 

Angrily walking into the men’s restroom near the visitors lounge, Dean moistened a brown paper towel and cleaned up his face.  He had a busted up lip and a small gash on the side of his head right beside his right eyebrow.  Suffice it to say but even as a human Cas was still a tough little bastard who had epic nightmares to boot.  Once he was done cleaning his face up, he got himself another cup of stale, too hot, too weak coffee and went to wait in the visitors lounge until he got permission to go back into Cas’ room.

***

When Castiel finally awoke from his sedation with new brown leather straps tied to his wrists, he was calm, but he laid in silence, not uttering a single word.  Cas’ eyes flickered to Dean’s every once in awhile, but he mostly stayed in a miserable silence as winces of pain marred his face every so often and Dean let him.  After the nightmare Cas suffered through the night before Dean couldn’t blame Cas for being miserable or in added pain.  Dean knew something incredibly fucked up had to have happened to him to cause an angel—albeit former—to have those kinds of nightmares.

Looking down at his wrist watch, Dean saw that it was just past three in the afternoon, before passing a hand down his tired face.  Lisa had been there about a half an hour before Cas awoke and Bobby was going to be here late tonight with Cas’ fake documents, so he guessed it was now or never to get Cas to talk.  He hated that he had to do this, especially so soon after Cas finally woke up for good since he got there, but he needed to know what had happened to Castiel and he thought it would be better to do this alone, for both of them.

Shifting forward in his chair, Dean laid a hand on Castiel’s shoulder and said, “Uh, Cas?”  Cas just merely moved his head towards Dean and locked his eyes to Dean’s, not saying anything, so he continued on with a slight, uncomfortable cough, “So what happened, man?  Why are you human now?  How did you end up in the hospital?  Did something do this to you?”

Castiel took in a huge inhale of breath and swiftly turned away, averting his eyes and continued to stay silent—nothing revealed at all.

Dean waited several minutes, his suspicions becoming more and more clear to him.  “Come on, Cas.  If there is anyone to relate to it’s me.”  God, Dean was so sounding like a needy chick right now….

“I…”  Cas began in a hesitant growl, “I was dead—”

“Dead?”  Dean incredulously said with furrowed brows, confused and angry.

Cas sighed wearily, clearly annoyed.  “You were there Dean.  You saw it happen.”

“Saw _what_ happen?  God, you’re not making any fucking sense.  I wasn’t there,” Dean admonished, greatly bewildered.

Cas whipped his head back around and glared at Dean full force.  Using that face that clearly said _I’m a fucking angel of the Lord and you’ll respect me or I’ll throw you back in Hell!_   “Yes, you were, Dean.  Lucifer killed me.”

“No—What?”  Dean replied in surprise.  “That was eight months ago Cas!”

“It’s January?”  Castiel hesitantly asked, with a tilt of his head, clearly puzzled like when he didn’t understand one of Dean’s pop culture references.  “I was dead all this time?  Up until two weeks ago?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, Dean wondered if Castiel’s brains had also been scrambled, but as far as Dean could tell there weren’t any brain injuries so Dean supposed that wasn’t the case.  “So I take it you don’t remember anything then?  Great, that’s just great!  Dandy in fact!”  He rose from his chair and started to pace the room.

“So I’ve been alive all that time?”  Castiel inquired.  “What has transpired since then?”

Dean sighed and stopped pacing, taking a seat at the edge of Castiel’s narrow hospital bed by his feet—making sure that he didn’t jostle him in the process—and went on to explain everything no matter how difficult it was.  He described the showdown with Lucifer and how their plan worked for the most part, with the added bonus of Michael also being in the cage.  He went on to tell Cas how he was resurrected and upgraded and how he stayed with Dean that first night and then left for Heaven.  He added that he went to stay with Lisa and Ben and hadn’t heard from him since until he got the call from Rufus yesterday morning.  Dean even told Cas about the whole angelic massacre that had happened a couple of months ago and what had been happening in the world because of it.

Castiel was silent for a very long time—very obviously upset—but Dean for once waited patiently.  Several minutes later, Cas spoke up.  “The doctors told me that I had obviously been tortured before being admitted here…and from what you have told me I think I may know what occurred…” He paused for a moment, deep in thought, before continuing, “The only being that could have stolen my Grace and tortured me is another angel, Dean.”  He gazed at Dean square in the eye.

“Sonofabitch,” Dean murmured under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut, then in a normal tone—somewhat strained—said, “I guess you weren’t as welcomed back as you thought you’d be, huh?” and then bitterly chuckled.

“Dean, I must get my Grace back,” Castiel said in a strong voice that contradicted his physical state.  “It cannot be destroyed and it cannot be kept in the wrong hands.”  Straining, he tried to sit up with a painful grimace cornering his mouth and eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there!”  Dean yelled, jumping from the bed before placing his hands on Cas’ shoulders, trying to push him back down into the bed.  “You ain’t going anywhere, buddy!  You’re not an angel anymore, you’re human.  You need to take it easy now.”

“It’s imperative I get my Grace, Dean!”  Castiel shouted, fighting back.  “You have no idea what could happen if it falls into the wrong hands!  It could be catastrophic!”  He kept struggling.

“I’m willing to guess you can’t walk for shit now!  You’re strapped to the fucking bed!  You’re not going anywhere!”  Dean griped, teeth gritted with effort.  “You need to stay here and fully recover!”

Castiel was panting now.  “Get me a wheelchair and cut the straps, Dean!”

“NO!”

“You don’t understand!  I need my Grace!  They’ll come for me!”  His breath was coming out in short, shallow bursts, almost as if he were having a panic attack.

Dean released Cas when he realized that Cas _was_ having a panic attack.  A panic attack!  An angel!  Shaking his head, he quietly, but firmly said, “Cas, calm down.”  When Castiel didn’t he repeated his words.  “Focus on your breathing, man.  You’re having a panic attack.  Calm the fuck down.  Deep, even breaths, okay?”  He laid a gentle hand on Cas’ shoulder and pushed him back down into the pillow.  Castiel didn’t resist.  “Focus on something else, Cas.  It’ll be over in a few minutes, I promise.”

Slowly, Castiel’s breathing became less harsh—more even—and he fully relaxed back into his bed even though he was grimacing in pain with bared teeth.  “How—how did you know to do that, Dean?”  He asked after awhile.

Dean shrugged and turned away.  “I—I used to have them when I was a kid—especially after mom died—I haven’t had one for years though,” he lied casually and then chuckled, “I used to focus on the periodic table to get me through.  Pretty dorky, huh?”  Cringing, he honestly couldn’t believe he said all that.  No one and he meant no one knew besides his dad that he suffered from panic attacks from time to time, not even Sam had known.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dean replied, waving it away.  Castiel obviously had some major issues even though he couldn’t remember the reasoning behind it.  Dean guessed it was somehow residual?  Either way, he whirled on his friend, pointing his finger.  “Next time you try to Shawshank your way out of here, I will cuff you to the fucking bed, you hear?  You won’t be able to Houdini your way out of those and I’m more competent than those damn nurses out there when it comes to restraining someone!”  Apparently last night was the first night Cas actually got out of his restraints via his violent nightmares—lucky him—and it was all due to the strap not being properly fastened by an incompetent nurse.

“I don’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t _understand that reference_ but I’ll make it clear,” Dean interrupted.  “You try to escape; I’ll make sure you can’t leave the damn bed, comprende?”

Castiel glowered.  “Yes, I understand,” he succinctly answered, before turning away.

“Good,” Dean replied, sitting back down on the edge of Cas’ hospital bed.  “Just remember you don’t have any fancy-smancy angel juju left which means you can’t teleport your way out of a pair of handcuffs anymore, so stay put, asshat.”  He patted Castiel’s thigh, before changing subjects.  “So what do you want to do now that’s over?  Do you feel like eating?  I know I could go for a bacon cheeseburger with a slice of chocolate pie right about now…”

***

After forcing some food down Castiel’s throat— _The fool kept refusing to eat!_ —Dean turned on the TV and flipped through the channels.  Dean knew Castiel would probably show the barest of interest at the time being in anything he put on, but Dean deduced that it was better than silence.  The lack of noise was driving Dean up the fucking goddamn walls!  However, he knew he couldn’t very well leave Cas’ side.  Cas was way too vulnerable right now and Dean, well, he just knew he couldn’t leave.

Dean felt guilty, he felt responsible for what happened to Cas’.  It didn’t make a lick of sense, but Dean felt it.  He kept thinking that maybe, just maybe he should have tried harder to get Cas to stick around and not go back to Heaven, but no, Dean knew logically that Cas did as he pleased.  Dean couldn’t have contained him.  It would have been like trying to contain a tiger in a mouse trap.  It would have been illogical to assume Dean had that much power over Cas, but nothing dampened down what he truly felt at the result— _coulda, woulda, shoulda._

Clicking through the channels Dean passed by cop procedural shows— _like a fucking million of them!_ —and he passed through a number of reality shows in which Dean knew would either confuse or upset Cas.  Dean smirked and shook his head at the thought of Cas actually watching the Italian-American “Guido” reality show about big, loud hair, fist pumping, tanning, and alcohol consumption.  Dean amused himself with thoughts of how if Castiel ever saw that show when at full angel juju he’d have been first in line of letting Lucifer have the planet.  Clicking through a number of other shows, Dean finally found something worth watching— _Dr. Sexy MD_ — _and hot-damn there was a marathon on!_   Dean let himself grin for the first time in a long time.

Watching the show, Dean explained everything that was happening on screen to Cas as he watched.  Cas seemed rapt in the drama of the show, but he also seemed a bit confused too.  _I do not understand, Dean.  Why do these doctors fornicate in closets when they should be saving lives?_ Cas had said in the beginning.  Dean went on to explain that it was just entertainment and a bunch of faux drama to keep viewers interested—not real.  However, when the nurse came in a few minutes later to check up on Castiel, there were lines of suspicion etched around his mouth and eyes when she addressed him, like he suspected that she just came from a make-out session in an elevator with a sexy doctor while ignoring the lives of their patients.  Other than that Castiel seemed interested in the show, but just vaguely.  Dean suspected that Cas was just placating him.

Soft music played as a cue to the ending of the episode, as Dean checked his watch.  It was eleven at night and there was no sign of Bobby yet.  He should have been here by now—a couple of hours ago in fact—but Dean decided not to worry about it just yet.  Bobby probably was just held up somewhere.  There were a number of logical, normal explanations on why Bobby wasn’t here just yet—traffic jams, a stop for dinner and coffee, beautiful Asian women—the list could go on and on.

Muting the TV, Dean looked over at Cas and slightly smiled.  Cas looked relaxed almost, besides the occasional grimace of pain when he shifted his position too much or expanded his lungs too far.  It was almost like this afternoons panic attack never existed.  And speaking of that panic attack, that was fucking weird shit right there.  Dean never imagined calm, severe, and aloof Castiel, angel of the Lord, having a panic attack.  Dean could find it understandable, he’d have been going ape-shit too if he were in Cas’ position, but he also found it disconcerting.  Castiel may not remember anything that happened to him, may only know what the doctors and Dean had told him, but Dean knew without a doubt that there was something itching underneath Cas’ skin, in the marrow of his bones, that remembered everything—a residual bitch slap that rears its head at inopportune moments.  Dean just hoped it didn’t rear its head again, especially considering what he was about to say.

“Uh, earlier, you mentioned something Cas…” Dean trailed off feeling inarticulate and uncomfortable as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel responded in a reserved, cautious voice, turning his head back to him.

Dean coughed.  “You said that someone having your Grace could be catastrophic—What did you mean by that?”

Cas honest to goodness sighed and was silent for a minute before answering.  “Grace essentially is pure creation Dean, but in the wrong hands it can lead to destruction.  When Anael—Anna to you—ripped out her Grace it plummeted to earth and created a century old oak tree in an empty field.  Many of your great wonders have been created by falling Grace—the higher the station of angel, the most magnificent the creation.  However, it can also be known to destroy.”

Dean gaped at Cas.  He didn’t think he ever heard Cas say that much at one time.  “So your Grace can be used as a weapon?”  He hesitantly inquired with furrowed eyebrows.  His hands were balled into fists.

“Souls are vulnerable, impermanent, but strong.  They are extremely valuable and powerful,” Cas answered, not seeming to make much sense, but Dean let him make his point.  “Grace is not unlike your human soul.  There are differences, yes, but essentially the same.  Ten million souls—be it human, demon, or monster—can be made into a nuclear reactor if converged.  An angel’s Grace is the equivalent of forty million strong souls.  So if ten million souls can be contained, what do you think the equivalent of forty million souls can do?”  He hypothetically mused.

“Shit…” Dean trailed off with wide eyes.  “So that means your Grace could be used as a massive WMD, to destroy the world?”

“Indeed,” Castiel succinctly replied, “And that’s only the Grace of an angel within my rank.  Imagine what the Grace of an Archangel or Seraphim could do to this world?  They are infinitely more powerful.”  Castiel paused for a moment and then added with a touch of melancholy in his deep voice, “There has only been one other time in this world an angel’s Grace has been used to destroy.”

“When was this?”  Dean demanded—a muscle in his jaw ticking.

Castiel bitterly chuckled.  “You’re scientists have it all wrong—Millions of years ago before humans were even thought of, Grace was used to destroy this planet.  It fell to earth, created a huge crater—the dust was so thick it blotted out the sun—killing most of the life here.”

Dean jumped up from his chair, running a hand down his weary face as he began to pace.  “So you’re telling me that an angel’s Grace was what destroyed the…the dinosaurs?”  He said incredulously.

“Yes.”             

Bewildered, Dean stopped his striding and gripped the side of Cas’ narrow bed, the plastic bar cool to the touch.  “But…but that was an Archangel’s Grace or…or a Seraphim’s Grace, right?”

Castiel warily sighed, looking exhausted.  “No, it was not.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Dean replied in a voice just above a whisper, looking down at his booted feet, hands still braced around the plastic siding.  After a minute and several deep breaths later, Dean finally looked up.  “What are the chances your Grace could be used as a WMD?”

His face screwed up at the question, bandaged and splinted hands restless at his sides.  “I do not remember anything.  It is very frustrating,” he ground out.  “What I do know is that I was obviously tortured by an angel who most likely wasn’t sympathetic to our cause in derailing the apocalypse.  The chances of my Grace being harnessed for something catastrophic are very high.  I pray to my Father that my Grace wasn’t so easily contained.”  His chapped lips twist down as he turned his head away.  Dean could tell the conversation was over, even though he sensed Cas wasn’t telling him everything.

Running a hand through his short hair, Dean swallowed thickly, and nodded.  “Okay.  Why don’t you get some sleep or…or whatever…” he suggested.  Cas inclined his head slightly at Dean’s words, eased back into his pillows and visibly relaxed before closing his eyes.  Feeling very uneasy, Dean took a seat at the edge of Cas’ bed, patted his leg and hoped that Cas and humanity had nothing to worry about.

***

An hour later Cas was sleeping, passed out due to another sedation, and Dean was sitting in his chair, leaning over to view his laptop that was perched on the edge of Cas’ bed, looking up any sudden manifestations of natural wonders, be it a simple oak tree or a goddamn rainforest, but he was coming up with nothing so far.  He was only at the surface of researching but he was just so fucking tired.  Rubbing his eyes, he yawned before closing his laptop, and setting it aside—out of the way.  Leaning over, Dean crossed his arms on the mattress and laid his head down upon them before closing his eyes.

He never did get to sleep though.  A minute later, Dean heard a knock and lifted his exhausted body to look over Cas’ form to the door.  Silhouetted in the light stood Bobby.

“Finally,” Dean muttered, sitting up fully as he rubbed at his eyes, “I thought maybe you were hijacked by a murdering hitchhiker or something.”

“Notta chance,” Bobby gruffly replied, walking into the room, just as Dean stood.  “It’s good to see you son,” he added a bit croakily as they embraced in a brief hug.

Pulling away, Dean tiredly smiled and patted Bobby’s back. “Right back at you, Bobby.”

Bobby smiled slightly back, before turning to look at the form on the hospital bed.  “Well shit,” he murmured, taking in the entirety of Cas’ state that he could see.  He whirled back on Dean after a stunned moment.  “The son of a bitch really is human ain’t he?  Well fuck, what happened?”  He demanded.

“He doesn’t remember,” Dean shortly replied, crossing his arms across his chest.  Glancing over at Castiel’s sleeping form, Dean said, “Look, maybe we should take this outside…I don’t want to wake him up—”

He made to move past Bobby and to the door, but Bobby stopped him with a hand to the chest.  “Someone came with me Dean.  They’re out in the hall waiting…so you know—“

Dean gave Bobby a shit-eating grin and raised his eyebrows.  “Did you bring a lady with, you sly old dog?  Is it that new neighbor of yours that keeps coming over with food?”  He chuckled at his joke, but abruptly stopped when he saw the look in Bobby’s eyes.  It was a look that clearly said— _Stop being a fucking idgit and pay attention!_   “Who is it?”  He asked warily, face devoid of emotion.

“Just get yer ass out there and see for yourself,” he responded in his crotchety voice.

Confused, Dean nodded and moved to the door.  As he left, he heard Bobby grumbling.  He was sure he heard the word _idgit_.  Leaving the room, Dean looked both ways down the corridor, but didn’t find anyone besides a lone nurse.  Muscles tense, he made his way to the closest waiting room.  He was vaguely aware that Bobby was trailing behind him.

Halting right outside the waiting room, Dean was stunned—wide eyed and slack jawed—at what he saw.  Blinking his eyes several times in case it was some kind of exhaustion induced hallucination, the image never left.  Right in front of him, slumped forward in a chair, elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands, and hands threaded through his long brown hair was Sam.  Dean didn’t have to see his face to recognize his little brother.

Breath hitching in his chest, moisture pricked at the corner of his eyes at the sight.  “Sammy?”  He gasped out.

Dean saw Sam slightly jump before lifting his head and saying, “Hey Dean.”  Sam’s eyes were tired—bags under them—and he looked paler, thinner.  Unraveling his long limbs, Sam stood up, looking awkward, as if he didn’t know what to do.

Crossing the waiting room in long strides, Dean pulled Sam into a tight, almost bone-crushing hug.  After a minute, Sam disentangled himself and took a step back, shoving his hands into his coat pocket.  “I, uh, wasn’t expecting a hug…I thought some holy water in the face or…or something?”  He rambled, as Dean turned his head away, swallowing around the thickness in his throat.

“Are…are you for real?”  Dean asked in a choked voice.  Turning to Bobby he demanded, “Is he for real?”

Bobby took a step forward.  “Did all of the tests myself.  He’s definitely real, definitely human.”

“Sammy?”  Dean gasped out again.

Sam nodded.  “Yeah.  It’s me.”

In stunned silence, Dean gazed at Sam for a long minute until reality hit him.  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.  You—you—you were—you were gone, man.  I mean, that—that was it.  How the hell are you—“

Sam shrugged his broad, slumped over shoulders and gave a weak smile.  “I don’t know,” he replied.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”  Dean demanded, voice growing stronger.

“I mean I have no idea.  I-I’m just back, y’know?”

Dean sighed, putting a hand low on his hipbone.  “Well, was it God?  Or—or—or Cas?”

Sam finally looked Dean straight in the eye.  “You tell me?  Cas never answered my prayers.  I mean, I was…down there, and then, next minute, it’s raining and I’m lying in that cemetery, alone.  It’s kind of hard to go looking for whatever saved you when you got no leads.  But I looked.  I mean, believe me, I looked…for weeks.”  He scoffed and turned away, running a hand through his hair—longer than the last time Dean saw it.

Dean stood there stunned.  “Wait, weeks?  How long have you been back?”  He demanded angrily and then repeated, “How long have you been back, Sam?”  He gazed at Sam imploringly.

Sam still wouldn’t look at him.  “Eight months,” he replied grudgingly and ending in a bitter laugh.

“Eight months?”  Dean nearly shouted, clenching his hands into fists and gritting his teeth.

“Dean—“ Sam began with a sigh.

“You’ve been back practically this whole time?”  Dean interrupted in bewilderment.  “What?  Did you lose the ability to send a fucking text message?”

Sam turned away again and hung his head, a curtain of hair obscuring his face.  “You finally had what you wanted Dean,” Sam quietly and calmly answered.

“I wanted my brother, alive,” Dean responded, voice choking on the last word.

Sam shoved his hair back roughly with his hand.  “You wanted a family.  You have for a long time—maybe the whole time.  I know you.  You only gave it up because of the way we lived.  But you had something, and you were building something.  Had I shown up, Dean, you would have just run off.  But it felt like after everything, you deserve some regular life.”

Infuriated, Dean turned to Bobby.  “You knew?  You knew Sam was alive?”

Bobby nodded.  “Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Look—“

“How long?”  Dean repeated in a firmer voice, eyes blazing with accusation.

Bobby looked down at his feet and shook his head tiredly.  “Six months,” he gruffly replied.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me?”  He raged, turning away, threading both of his hands together and placing them behind his head as he paced.

“And I’d do it again!”  Bobby said with firm conviction in his voice.

Dean whirled back around.  “Why?”

Bobby looked at him with sheer bewilderment.  “Because you got out Dean!  You walked away from the life.  And I was so damn grateful, you got no idea.”

“Do you have any clue what walking away meant for me?”  Dean’s voice cracked on his words as he pointed at Bobby accusingly.

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded with narrowed, hard eyes, “A woman and a kid and not getting your guts ripped out at age thirty.  That’s what it meant.”

Dean rounded on Sam.  “That _woman_ and that _kid_ ,” Dean hissed, vaguely gesturing in a random direction, “I went to them because you asked me to, despite what I really wanted!”

“Good,” Bobby growled.

“Good for who?  I showed up on their doorstep half out of my head with grief.  God knows why they even let me in.  I drank too much.  I had nightmares.  I looked everywhere.  I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out!”  Dean ranted, face screwed up in anger and frustration but also in relief, like a great weight had been heaved off of his shoulders.

Sam frowned and narrowed his eyes at Dean.  “You promised you’d leave it alone,” he griped out.

Dean threw his arms up into the air.  “Of course I didn’t leave it alone!  Sue me!  Eight fucking months?  You couldn’t put me out of my misery?”

“Look, I get it wasn’t easy.  But that’s life!  And it’s as close to happiness as I’ve ever seen a hunter get.  It ain’t like I wanted to lie to you son.  But you were out Dean,” Bobby vehemently declared.

“I wasn’t happy!”  Dean hissed.  “I tolerated it.”  He turned his back and walked towards the corridor leading back to Cas’ room and pointedly stared.  “Do I look out to you?”  He quietly, sadly inquired, before gazing back around, fixing them each with a stare.

***

Dean was tired, beyond exhausted, but he was also too wired to sleep after his reunion with his brother.  It was surreal and tiring and he couldn’t stop himself from gazing at Sam for long periods of time, studying him.  Sam and Dean were sitting in Castiel’s hospital room in the dim light.  Dean was back in his chair on Cas’ left side and Sam had dragged the other visitors chair from behind the curtained off area to Cas’ right side a couple of hours ago.  Sam was sitting in the chair, with his limbs stretched out and his arms crossed over his chest.  He was wearing blue jeans and a plain black hoodie.  Defined circles were etched under his hazel eyes making them appear hollow in the shadows and he seemed gaunt—thinner as if he had been sick.  His chestnut colored hair was longer, falling into his face, and curling just above his shoulders.  In other words Sam kind of looked…bad—like shit actually.

Dean knew without a doubt that this was definitely real, absolutely Sam, but something was nagging at the corner of his mind.  Something was off about his brother, but not in a _demon-blood-evil_ way or a _wearing-Lucifer-to-prom_ way.  This was Sam, but a different Sam.  Dean couldn’t help but think that maybe Sam’s stint in the cage was worse than he feared.  Dean’s done the calculations in his head—he knew how time in Hell differed from time on earth—and even if Sam had only been in the cage for twenty-four hours it definitely equated to days being tortured.  Not only that but being Lucifer’s meat-suit couldn’t have been exactly a walk in the fucking park.

“Uh,” Dean quietly began, leaning forward in his seat, shifting his weight.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

Sam jerked up, making eye contact.  “Talk about what?”  He asked, almost innocently, like he really didn’t know what.

Dean scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably.  “Y’know…the _cage_ …” he replied.

Sam’s face screwed up into something resembling a bitch face.  “I don’t remember,” he shortly answered.

“What do you mean you don’t remember?”  Dean demanded on edge, strange adrenaline spiking his nerves.

Sam shrugged.  “I just don’t okay?”  He paused, taking a deep breath.  “All I remember is—all I remember is being cold, like _really_ cold…but I-I also remember it being blistering hot.  Then the next minute I’m awake on my back choking on the rain.  Nothing else.”

Dean leaned back in his seat, processing this information, finding it to be a little strange—a whole lot fucked up—but really nothing to write home about.  Dean shrugged it off and said, “Why don’t you get some sleep?  You look like death warmed over.”  And Sam did look exactly like that.

“Look who’s talking?”  Sam countered.  “When was the last time you slept because I slept all the way here basically—“

Dean thought back, trying to remember, before shrugging.  “I slept a few hours last night, but I’m good.”

Sam scoffed.  “You’re dead on your feet.  I’ll watch over Castiel if that’s what you’re worried about?”

Dean rolled his eyes and turned his head away.  “I ain’t fucking worried.”

“Dude, yes you are,” Sam replied, sitting up in his chair.  “You’re packing heat and you protected this room the best you could without the nurses noticing, so don’t lie to me Dean.”

Dean knew it to be true, but he didn’t say a word about it, instead choosing to ignore Sam’s comment altogether.  Either way, he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to sleep if he tried.  After a minute passed, he turned back to Sam.  “So what have you been doing the past eight months?  Have—have you been hunting or…or laying low or what?”

Sam hesitated before answering, hands balling up into tight fists.  “I haven’t been hunting…well, except for a few hunts I went on with Bobby months ago…Anyway since then I’ve been helping out Bobby with the phones and research,” he stoically replied, obviously being flippant, not telling Dean everything.

“Well, what were you doing before finally going to Bobby’s?”  Dean inquired.  “You had to have been doing something then, yes?”

Sam visibly flinched, actually _flinched_ , but remained silent for a long time.  “I did a little of this—a little of that—“ he vaguely answered.

Dean didn’t like the sound of that but didn’t push, not now at least.  He was the last person to try to push other people to talk.  He himself hated pushy people, so he understood.  Dean wouldn’t press for now anyway.

A low whimper sounded in the dark, catching Dean’s attention.  Jerking his head around, he warily looked over at Castiel, wondering for a moment if Cas was starting to wake up, that his meds were failing.  Cas’ teeth were barred—whimpering hissing through—and his face was grimacing with pain.  For a long moment everything was still, everything was silent except for Cas’ ragged breathing.  Then all of a sudden, Castiel’s head jerked back on his pillow—bearing his neck—and his back arched up.  His restrained arms were flat and tense at his sides as he started hollering a scream that could rival any banshee.  The cry was full of immense pain and torture and went on and on and on—body taut and strained.  It seemed to last forever, but Dean knew only a few seconds had passed.  Suddenly Cas’ body relaxed, but it looked unnatural to Dean, like a puppet’s strings having been cut.  Another minute passed with no sound, no movement.  Dean thought Cas’ nightmare was over and was about to unwrap his tightened hands from the wooden armrests and lean back into his chair, when Cas started thrashing around in his bed.  His back arched up once again, but this time he started whipping his head back and forth—teeth gritted in pain, eyes and nose scrunched up—and began to thrash about his bed violently.  So violently in fact that Cas’ blanket and sheets slipped off the bed—IV yanking out of his arm—and his legs ended up over the edge of the bed, dangerously close to really hurting himself.

Both Sam and Dean jumped out of their chairs at the same time.  Dean instantly tried gripping Cas’ shoulders to try to keep them firmly on the mattress as he yelled at Sam to grab Cas’ legs and put them back on the bed.  In the commotion, Bobby ran into the room, gun drawn, but as he realized what was happening he slipped it away and went to help Sam who was struggling against Cas’ nightmarish panic.  Castiel may have been human now and restrained, but Dean could personally testify that he was still freakishly strong and when one added adrenaline into the mix, well, the results ain’t good.  Legs back on the bed once again, Sam gripped his shins, right below the knees, keeping them in place as Dean continued to push Cas’ arms firmly to the bed.

“Cas!”  Dean yelled, close to his ear.  “Castiel, you little shit!  Wake the fuck up!”  Dean knew that what he was doing probably wasn’t exactly kosher, not nice at all, but Cas needed to wake up, needed to snap out of the terror of his dreams.  Dean’s been there before.  Several minutes passed before Castiel’s breathing hitched and then relaxed and he finally stopped thrashing about.

Tentatively, Dean unwrapped his hands from Cas’ arms, saying over his shoulder, “Get a doctor or nurse or _something_ ,” to whomever was listening.  Dean was vaguely aware that Bobby left the room in quick strides.

Castiel was still and eerily quiet as they waited for help, but Dean knew Cas was awake and in pain.  “Are you okay Cas?”  Dean softly asked—out of breath from the struggle—but Cas never answered.

A moment later a nurse came in, looking a bit irritable and put Cas’ IV back into his left arm.  Sam and Bobby left the room as the nurse looked over Castiel’s injuries—making sure none of the stitches had opened and none of the sores he sported looked infected—and cleaned him up clinically as Dean turned away, vaguely acknowledging that Cas had also wet the bed.  Before the nurse left she said everything appeared good, but she was going to talk to Castiel’s doctor about scheduling more x-rays for later in the morning.  She also gave Cas another heavy sedative to help him rest more fully.

As the nurse left, Castiel’s breathing evened out as he fell into a deep sleep.  Dean couldn’t look at him—it hurt to look.  Instead Dean stared out the window, hands balled into fists, and arms crossed over his chest.  Deep rooted anger coursed through his veins, so immense that tears actually pricked at his eyes.  He wasn’t angry at Castiel, not at all; instead he was angry with the fucking dicks that did this to his friend.  How could an angel fall so far?  To be so human?

Dean scrubbed at his eyes when he saw the reflection of Bobby and Sam in the window looking at him worriedly and warily glancing at Cas.

Dean was pissed and someone or something was going to pay.

***

Early the next afternoon Dean finally forced himself away from the hospital and made it back to Lisa’s to shower, shave, and to grab even more of his belongings, before he had to head back to the hospital.  Dean had left Cas with Sam and Bobby while he was napping after a morning of testing to ensure that he hadn’t reinjured anything after his violent nightmare the night before.  Dean only had a few hours to spare before Cas was being taken to his first physical therapy appointment and Dean wanted to be there with him so he could learn to further help Cas along with his recovery.  It was an embarrassment to him how much he felt like a mother hen clucking about, but even he wasn’t as stupid to think that caretaking wasn’t a part of who he was, just like hunting was.  He could deny it forever but that wouldn’t ever make it fucking true.

Dean felt he owed Cas his help anyway, especially now after learning from Cas’ doctor—Dr. Kale—earlier in the day the full extent of Cas’ injuries, since Cas hadn’t really been in the sharing and caring mood to tell Dean much of anything.  All Dean knew about his state was from what he could see with his own two eyes.

It had been worse than what Dean thought it would be though.

Dr. Kale informed them that Cas was found in the middle of a field—two weeks ago—in Arcadia in really bad shape.  The doc also said that Cas had obviously been tortured.  Castiel had been admitted into the hospital with multiple broken bones—including fingers and toes—and internal bleeding.  He also had numerous wounds and sores, pulled teeth and nails, and a bout of Sepsis.  But the real kickers were—and it made Dean feel nauseas just thinking about it—that Cas’ eyes had been sewn shut and he had two deep gashes going down his back right in-between his shoulder blades.  Dr. Kale had been amazed that Cas had even survived, but apparently he was healing remarkably even though he’ll now need glasses because of his damaged corneas and of course physical therapy for the muscle deterioration in his arms and legs.  All in all, Dr. Kale seemed confident that Cas would make a full recovery and he was even releasing him to their care within the next week.

About to leave Lisa’s house, Dean ran his hands through his wet hair and then checked his wrist-watch, seeing that he had about an hour and a half left to get back to the hospital in time for Cas’ physical therapy appointment.  Yanking on his boots and jacket, Dean grabbed up his duffle bag just as Lisa unexpectedly walked through the door even though she should have been at work still.

“Dean!”  She exclaimed in surprise—hand raised up to her heart—upon seeing him standing right in front of her.  “You’re home!  I didn’t even see you’re truck parked out front—“

“Yeah…I parked it out back…” Dean answered with a slight shrug as Lisa walked over and kissed him with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Pulling back she looked up at him.  “Does this mean Bobby made it here then?  Is he with Castiel?”

Dean dropped his duffle bag to the floor and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably before answering, “Um…yeah…about that…Bobby didn’t come alone…”

Lisa’s face visibly fell, obviously expecting bad news.  Hands on her hips, she said, “Well who came back with him?”

Dean grimaced before taking a seat on the couch.  Lisa followed but instead of sitting next to him she chose the plush floral chair across from him.  Taking a deep breath—rubbing at his knuckles nervously—he began explaining how Sam was back.  When he was finished several minutes later there was an air of tension between them.

“You’re going back to the hospital then,” Lisa stated with a sigh, rather than questioned, as she supported her head in her hands, elbows resting upon her knees.

“Lis, I have to,” Dean replied a bit incredulously.  “Did you really expect me to abandon my best friend as soon as someone else showed up?”

Lisa jerked her head up and scowled.  “How am I supposed to know what to expect from you in concern with that man?”  She cried, sweeping her hair angrily out of her face.  “You never once mentioned him to me and now he’s here and you have one foot out the door already!  And this was even before you found out your brother was still alive!”

“Lisa—“ Dean warned in a hard growl, but she took no notice whatsoever.

“I mean I always knew that if by some miracle Sam showed up at our door you’d be gone from our lives,” Lisa ranted, continuing on, “But—“

“Lisa!”  Dean snapped, cutting her off harshly.  “Shut up!”

She abruptly went quiet as she looked up at Dean in astonishment and hurt at his tone of voice.

“I’m not abandoning no one,” he firmly replied, before standing up—grabbing his duffle—and heading for the door.  Stopping just before the door, hand on the knob, he turned around and more calmly added, “I’ll see you later,” before leaving.

***

Back at the hospital Dean found Sam in Cas’ room, sitting in the chair he occupied the night before with his long legs stretched out before him and hair hanging in his face as he leaned over his laptop.  Cas was still asleep.

Walking into the room, Dean tossed his duffle aside in an area that he had deemed _out of the way_.  Sam looked up at him with a raised eyebrow—noticing his bad mood—before closing his laptop and shoving a hand through his hair, sweeping it out of his face.

“Rough day?”  He inquired as Dean slumped in his chair with a scowl on his face.  Not answering, Dean just crossed his arms over his chest and eyed Sam up expectantly.  “What’s going on with you?”

Dean rolled his eyes and finally spoke.  “Fight with Lisa,” he answered succinctly.

“Oh—“

“ _Oh_ what?”  He demanded of his brother, leaning forward.

“Nothing,” Sam quickly said, before falling silent.  A few minutes passed before he spoke up once again, but this time with an air of hesitance.  “What—what did you mean last night?  You mentioned that going to Lisa and Ben wasn’t what you really wanted?”

Dean shifted uncomfortably, averted his eyes away, and didn’t answer.

“I-I thought that’s what you wanted man…a normal apple pie life?”

“Can we not talk about this Sam?”  Dean snapped.

“No Dean.  I want to know,” he insisted with a trademark bitchface.

Dean sighed and gripped the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.  He could feel a tension headache coming on.  “I thought it was what I wanted too.  It was what I wanted, but then…If circumstances had been different”—his eyes flickered to Cas’ sleeping form—“I wouldn’t have gone to Lisa and Ben,” he replied grudgingly.

“I’m sorry Dean.  If I had known—“

“Well you didn’t!”  Dean barked out with narrowed eyes, hands clenching and unclenching with unbidden emotion.  “And you have absolutely nothing to fucking apologize for with this.  It was my own stupid choice.”

Sam slumped back in his chair and pushed the palms of his hands against his tired eyes.  “I just thought that she would be the one to make you happy, to make you live your life…” he trailed off aimlessly before looking up and demanded, “Do you even care for Lisa or did you just stay because I asked you?”

“Of course I care about Lisa and Ben!”  Dean fervently croaked.  “It’s just certain fucking things have just become clearer these past months—“

Sam stared at Dean for a long while before he nodded and simply said, “Okay.”

Silence descended on them as Dean looked over at Cas before checking his watch.  Rubbing a hand down his face he leaned back in his chair wondering what he was going to do.  Things were obviously pretty bad with Lisa and he didn’t even know where he’d be in a week’s time once Cas was released from the hospital.  Even though he had realized he didn’t belong with Lisa and Ben, that didn’t mean he didn’t love them, didn’t want to abandon them.  However, Sam and Cas were back in his life and he doubted Sam wanted to stick around in Cicero and he doubted Lisa would ever let Cas into her home.  And he could hazard a guess why after this afternoon.  Before their fight, he could tell that she didn’t seem to like him that much for some reason.  She had never spoken of any dislike but he could just tell by her pointed silences when she came to visit Dean.  Now he knew why—she was jealous.  Not to mention, how could he not go with Sam when he leaves?  He’s been without him for eight months and there was something very obviously wrong with him judging by his appearance.  He was definitely at an impasse.

Looking over at Sammy, Dean couldn’t believe how bad he appeared—too long hair, unshaven face, dark encircled eyes, and obvious weight loss.  Something was definitely going on.

“So really, what’s going on with you Sam?”  Dean inquired.  “Y’know since we’re in sharing mode now, why don’t you finally enlighten me.”  He leaned forward with a raised eyebrow, rubbing his fisted knuckles.

Sam furrowed his brows and feigned an innocent air around him.  “What do you mean?  I’m fine.”

Dean snorted and rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, whatever man,” Dean mocked and then insisted, “Come on, Sam, I ain’t stupid.  There’s a reason why you look like shit and past experience says that it can’t be good.”

“Really, I’m good, alright?”  Sam answered, stifling a yawn.  “Just drop it.”

Dean lifted his hands in surrender, but only because a nurse walked into the room, but it didn’t stop him from adding, “Fine, fine—but don’t think this is over buddy.”

***

Sam was so very, very tired.  Exhaustion crept throughout his bones and his muscles were sore from lack of rest.  Dark circles encircled his eyes, making them appear hollow and lifeless.  It just got so bad that he had to stop looking into mirrors at the reminder of his mental and physical state.  Compared to how he used to look, it now appeared as if he were terminally ill.  It was also how he felt—like shit.  Not for nothing, but it was really starting to piss him off not knowing what was wrong with him.

Everything was just getting worse—terribly bad.  He had his good moments, but then he always had his bad.  He could barely sleep for more than a few hours at a time—he was constantly dreaming weird, vivid, awful things—and he found himself collapsing more and more often with images bombarding his mind.  He locked himself away for hours at a time when voices whispered into his ears, like a faint buzzing.

The trip from South Dakota to Indiana had seen him at his very worst so far, hence why Bobby and he were so late getting to the hospital, but thankfully he started getting better an hour outside of Tipton and he’s been pretty okay since.

Sam couldn’t help but wonder if he really was sick and even contemplated checking himself into the hospital in Tipton to get some tests done but that was just desperation and fear getting the better of him.  He was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that whatever was happening to him was supernatural in origin— _because when was it not?_   He just didn’t know what it was.  Not to mention, he was sure that if he ever did check himself into the hospital he’d end up in the _Hotel California_ with four padded walls and a straight jacket.  _You can check in any time you like but you can never leave_ …

Sam sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger while he tried stifling a yawn.  He was still in Castiel’s hospital room even though Cas and Dean were at Castiel’s first physical therapy appointment trying to take the opportunity of peace to take a quick nap, but unfortunately every time he closed his eyes vivid images played behind his lids.

Dean was obviously suspicious of Sam, knew that Sam was lying about his welfare, but Sam just had to keep his mouth shut, at least for now.  Dean had other things to worry about than him.  Bobby had been urging Sam at the get-go to tell Dean the truth, but Sam just couldn’t.  Not just because he didn’t want to burden Dean with one more thing, but because once he admitted it to Dean then it would make it all real and he wasn’t okay with that.  Sam figured he’d postpone it—or try to at least—until after Cas was released.

Dean—pushing Cas in a wheelchair—entered the room as Dr. Kale followed.  Sam tuned out the words and just simply watched as Castiel was put back into his bed before Dean took a seat at his side.  Sam took the time out to observe his brother.  Sam found it fascinating how easily Dean took on the role of caretaker with someone other than him for a change.  It was something he never thought he’d see his brother ever do.  Sam had only been at the hospital for less than twenty-four hours, but it was still enough time for him to witness Dean acting like a mother hen in a major way.  Dean always helped Castiel to the bathroom and helped him eat since some of Castiel’s fingers were still splinted and his arms were still tied down.  Even when Cas would exhibit frustrating behavior Dean would try to keep his cool, but Sam would catch him rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth.  The most surprising thing Sam witnessed of his older brother was when he’d catch Dean comforting Cas—or so he assumed that’s what Dean was doing.  Each time Sam caught them, he tried to think back and remember if he’d ever seen them touching before but he couldn’t.

As Dr. Kale left, Sam took out his laptop and placed it on his lap—setting out to do some more research since sleep was evading him.  Awhile later, Sam looked up to see Dean sitting at the edge of Castiel’s bed, talking away about random things, trying to get Cas out of the funk he had fallen into after last night’s nightmare to no avail.  The TV was on up in the corner of the room— _Dr. Sexy MD_ softly playing in the background.  Personal affects cluttered the room already after only three days.  It almost looked as if Dean had moved into the hospital room—duffle bag over-stuffed with clothes lay in the corner of the room, out of the way with Dean’s laptop lying on top along with his phone and miraculously an iPod and on Castiel’s bedside table laid a heap of books and car magazines.  The doctors and nurses and orderlies weren’t too pleased about the room’s state, but they didn’t openly complain as long as everything was out of the way for them to work.  Sam had expected to hear more of a fuss about it, but they didn’t receive any.  He had initially been confused—assuming that Dean had laid on the charm pretty thick even before Sam and Bobby had arrived—until Sam realized that everyone just thought that Dean and Cas were romantic partners, which had admittedly made Sam laugh.  However, that was before Dean’s _almost_ love confession.

A few minutes later Bobby appeared in the doorway—carrying bags of takeout food and other miscellaneous things he had bought—with an expression of worry, bafflement, and fear paling his face.

“What?”  Dean immediately inquired, jumping to his feet from his chair loudly enough that it disturbed Castiel from the sleep he had just fallen into about ten minutes ago.

Bobby strode into the room and unloaded his burden onto the floor by Dean’s duffle bag and handed the takeout boxes over to Dean.

“Turn on CNN,” Bobby grunted, turning to Sam, not relaying anything else.

Nodding, Sam put aside his laptop and went to retrieve the remote from Cas’ bed.  Clicking onto the appropriate channel with a knot of unease growing in his stomach, he slumped back into his chair, while he listened as the news reports kept coming in.  The frown that he wore deepened more and more every minute as he watched and he felt sick to his stomach.

There had been another mass killing of angels at every point across the globe, just like two months ago.  Hundreds were being found.  Entire cities and states were experiencing black-outs and freak storms.  Flocks of birds were falling out of the skies in mid-flight and dead sharks and whales were washing ashore on multiple coastlines.  The reports just kept coming and coming in.

“What the fuck—?”  Dean remarked, voice trailing off.  His eyes were focused on the craziness they were witnessing on the TV.  “This is apocalyptic-type shit here,” he added, turning wide eyes to Castiel who was sitting quiet and stone still.

Sam tried to gauge his reaction but Castiel remained rather stoic.  Sam wanted to ask the former angel questions—as did all of them from the looks of it—but they all knew it was futile.  Cas would know nothing of what’s going on.

Dean turned his eyes to Sam and Bobby.  “Do you know what the hell is going on here?”  He demanded.

Sam shook his head.  “No.  We’ve been trying to find out what we might be dealing with since the first time this happened two months ago, but all of our contacts who could have known are either dead or,”—he looked towards Cas—“indisposed.”

Bobby cut in.  “All we know is that these fallen angels that have lived to tell the tale ain’t talking and are forming factions for some unforeseeable reason.”

And that was entirely true.  All of their contacts were gone practically and they had been trying to figure out what was really going on in-between everything else they were doing.  They had found connections like how most of the living fallen angels were forming factions like Bobby said, they just didn’t know why.  Among that they have had a very busy few months of getting Bobby’s soul back from Crowley, finding new prophets of the Lord, looking into what was wrong with him as well as looking into a way to release Adam Milligan—his half-brother—from the cage, finding long lost relatives and losing them, uncovering secret batcaves, and researching things for other hunters calling in for help.

“Shit,” Dean muttered under his breath, before turning back to Castiel.  “Cas, do you know any angels who we can contact to find out what the fuck is going on?”  Castiel didn’t acknowledge Dean or anyone else while they all waited expectantly for his answer.  Instead he just continued to stare up at the TV in the corner of the room with wide, blue eyes.  Dean waved his hand in front of Cas’ face as he said, “Hey, snap out of it buddy.”

Castiel blinked once and then twice before sweeping his eyes around the room until he met Dean’s questioning gaze.  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”  He inquired in an emotionless voice.

Sam heard Dean sigh and he could tell his brother was growing frustrated.  “Do you have any angel pals you can contact who can tell us what the fucking hell is going on?”

Cas leaned back into his pillows wearily and closed his eyes.  He was silent for so long Sam thought that he might have fallen back to sleep but a minute later he opened his eyes again and answered, only addressing Dean, “The only three angels I know to trust are Rachel, Balthazar, and Samandriel, but I do not know if they have perished or not or are still in Heaven.  Between the apocalypse and this they could all be dead for all I know.”

“There’s no one else, Feathers?”  Bobby asked gruffly from his tense stance in the corner of the room.

Castiel bit his bottom lip in a very human gesture of worry and shook his head.

Everyone but Castiel let out collective sighs of frustration—all of them knowing that they couldn’t do anything with this until they left the hospital.

“I’m going to go back to the motel and keep digging—not that I expect anything to come out of it though,” Bobby intoned in resignation, leaving the room.

“Hold up, Bobby!”  Sam called.  “I’m coming with!”  He grabbed up his stuff and headed for the door.  Turning back around he addressed them, “I’ll give you guys a call in a few hours unless we actually find something sooner than that, ‘kay?”

Dean shrugged and nodded, but he also appeared hesitant to let Sam leave.  Chuckling Sam left the room and made his way down the hall before Dean could stop him.  Sam was being overcome by a bad spell—his vision beginning to swim.  However he only made it to the visitors lounge before collapsing in a chair.  Sam blinked his eyes and shifted uncomfortably, trying to ease away his double-vision.  Opening his eyes the problem hardly ceased, instead the edges of his eyes were rippling like a rock thrown into water.  Sam swallowed down the bile that was rising in his throat as the dizziness hit—trying to focus his eyes.  After a minute his whirling eyesight and nausea disappeared.  Sam hastily looked around the lounge and was about to run to the elevator—to escape any prying eyes—when he saw a womanly shape materialize right out the white plaster wall across from him.

At first the womanly shape was dark and blurry, but as she got closer the image cleared.  Sam’s legs felt paralyzed as he gazed at the ghostly woman—who actually wasn’t a ghost or spirit of any kind.  It was like a dream, or—or maybe a memory?

The woman walked towards Sam seductively, reminding him of a big cat on the prowl more than anything else.  She was small and curvy, wearing nothing but a long gossamer skirt that sat low on her hips.  The material of the skirt fell in sheer waves reminiscent of flowing water in a pale blue.  Long mahogany hair in loose curls cascaded down her back, falling in waves in front, covering her bare breasts.  The woman’s skin was a pale peaches and cream and she had big, beautiful—soul-wrenching—blue eyes.  Her lips were quirked into what looked like a smirk—one side tilted up farther than the other.

She was beautiful and ethereal, yet Sam was filled with an awful foreboding at this presence.  The woman’s image sent chills up and down his spine and she gave off an aura of malcontent.

As she approached, her hands moved out from her sides like she was getting ready to embrace him in a hug.  Her lips moved and Sam heard an eerie whisper brush across his mind and ears in a soft lilting voice full of promises— _Sam_.  The image was getting closer and closer by the second.

Finally finding the use of his legs, he jumped to his feet, narrowly escaping the vision, before he fled from the lounge and ran to the elevator.  He ran and he ran until he found himself outside.  Gasping, he leaned against the brickwork and slid to the ground, trying to stifle his growing panic.  He didn’t move again until Bobby found him and led Sam to Bobby’s pickup truck.

***

As soon as Bobby and Sam left, Cas lay back down and turned his head away from the TV.  “Can you turn that off now?”  Cas asked Dean quietly.

Dean glanced at the screen; saw nothing new popping up now, so he complied.  Tossing the remote aside, he grabbed the takeout boxes—he was starving and there really wasn’t much to be done right now because of their limited resources so he might as well chow down on his dinner of bacon cheeseburger, fries, and cherry pie.  “Cas, are you hungry?  Bobby snuck you in a hamburger.”

“No,” Cas succinctly responded.

“Okay,” Dean shrugged, “But it’s here when you do.”

Dean ate in silence, mulling over Cas’ behavior.  It didn’t take a genius to know he was upset.  He just found out that a thousand more of his brothers and sisters have been found dead or were lost on earth so it was understandable.  Dean wished he could do something to help Cas, but he knew from experience that there really wasn’t much he could do.  However, as his gaze swept past the leather bonds tied to Cas’ wrists he realized he could do something very little to help.

“Fuck it,” Dean muttered as he leaned over and unclasped the straps holding Cas’ arms down.  Cas gazed up at him in near bewilderment and when Dean was done he met Cas’ eyes and saw a silent _thank you_ written in them.  Free from his bonds, Cas turned onto his right side, breathing in a sigh of relief, as his eyes fluttered closed.

Throwing away his food wrappers, Dean flipped off the lights, before taking his boots off.  It was late and he was exhausted.  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, right beside Cas, he swung his legs up onto the bed and leaned back.  Cas who was still awake rolled over and stared at him with confused, owlish eyes.  Dean met his eyes in question—not moving—until Cas gave a very imperceptible nod of understanding, consent, and relief before resuming his initial resting position.  Dean smiled slightly before scooting down into the bed and also rolling onto his right side.  Cas moved closer to Dean as Dean wrapped his left arm around Cas’ lean torso.  Neither of them said a word when they were finally situated.  Minutes later they both found sleep within each other’s comfort.

***

 _Dean was leaning against the windshield, perched on top of his Impala, sipping a cold beer.  Cas was laying on his back by Dean’s side, hands flat on his lean stomach.  They were both gazing up at the endless expanse of stars that shown three times as brightly as they normally would have.  A light summer’s breeze ruffled their hair.  The sound of distant frogs and cicada chirped their night-time melody.  Fireflies roamed freely through the distant fields flaring brilliantly.  Dean smiled at the peace and contentment that he felt.  From his speakers a song suddenly came into being—_ And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry, starry night, you took your life, as lovers often do—

_Slipping his fingers through Cas’ soft, dark hair Cas made a humming noise in the back of his throat in pleasure.  Turning his head up to look at Dean from his awkward position, he smiled sadly at him._

_“What’s wrong?”  Dean found himself asking, gazing down at Cas curiously._

_Cas’ bright cobalt eyes shown clearly in the dark as he shifted them away and back to the stars—remaining silent for a long while._

_“I understand now, Dean,” he finally uttered._

_“Understand what, Cas?”_

_“Gabriel,” he succinctly answered, staring into space.  “I understand now why he left Heaven.  I understand now why he fled from his brothers, cut off the Holy Host—I understand his pain, his turmoil at seeing the conflict.”  He turned on his side to more easily look upon Dean, threading their fingers together.  “And he died needlessly.”  He harshly added._

_Dean blinked in surprise.  “Why are you saying this?”_

_“Nothing could have stopped it Dean.  We’re all going to burn,” Cas calmly replied, unthreading their fingers and laying a comforting hand against Dean’s cheek, making his eyes flutter closed at the contact.  “Free will is a fickle foe set to hang us with His noose.  Only Fate is constant—“_

_Chords of a new song rang out and caressed his ears—_ Come on baby, don’t fear the Reaper/Baby take my hand, don’t fear the Reaper/We’ll be able to fly, don’t fear the Reaper/Baby I’m your man _—making his eyes flutter back open only to see a world of fire circling him and Cas.  Orange, yellow, red, and blue flame licked the starry heavens in a quest to conquer the land and level it.  It smelled of burning ozone and flesh.  In the distance—through the flames like a mirage—Dean saw the shimmering image of Death riding up upon them on a pale steed with a promise of destruction._

_Dean focused in on Cas and saw his image flicker between whole and alive to burnt black—cracked and raw ashy flesh.  In alarm, he blinked several times before Cas flickered back into his natural state and stayed there._

_“Death is coming,” Dean whispered in a tone almost like awe as he gazed into Cas’ blue orbs, the whirling galaxy reflecting in them._

_“Yes,” Cas concurred with serenity.  “He is almost upon us.”  He sat up and looking around the landscape with keen eyes, red flame now reflecting in the blue, before bringing Dean close to him in an embrace._

_Dean grasped on tight, ignoring the burning earth, the promise of Death, the absolute misery, instead just focusing on the sensation of having Cas’ warm body in his arms.  They clung to each other for long moments, even when Dean felt the burn of fire caress his skin, spreading over his body, turning him and Cas into embracing statues of ash until the wind caught them up and blew them across the universe._

***

Dean gasped awake, heart hammering erratically in his chest in sheer terror from his vivid nightmare.  The scent of smoke still cloyed in his nose and bile rose up in his throat from his churning stomach.  Scrambling out of bed, Dean barely made it to the room’s bathroom before he heaved up the contents of his stomach.  Several minutes passed before Dean collapsed to the floor—swiping his hand across his forehead to collect the sweat beading there.  Flushing the toilet, Dean stood up on shaky feet and left the bathroom.  Heading to his duffle bag to retrieve his toothbrush and toothpaste, the little hairs at the back of his neck stood up and he suddenly stilled.  Alertly, Dean gazed about the room, peered out the window, but saw nothing.  However, the sensation of being watched still thrummed about the room, and didn’t let up until the sun began to light up the horizon.

***

“Dammit Lisa, I’m not leaving this hospital right now!”  Dean growled into his cell phone in frustration.  He was standing in Cas’ hospital room, back turned on his sleeping form, as he watched the snow fall outside through the frosted window.  He was trying to be quiet, but he wasn’t succeeding and this conversation was really starting to piss him off.  Dean really should have taken this call outside so not to disturb Cas, but Bobby and Sam were gone—getting food at a nearby diner—and this was the only place he could get any cell phone reception due to the copper lining scrambling the frequencies so he stayed put.  He needed to keep an eye on Cas just in case, especially after that weird feeling Dean got early Tuesday morning after that very disturbing nightmare.

Turning around as he heard Cas stir in his exhausted sleep, he gazed over at his sleeping form and lightly smiled.  Cas was looking better now, healthier and whole, after three days of uninterrupted rest.  He hadn’t had a nightmare since Sunday night and it showed.  And because of that the doctors allowed Cas to remain unrestrained and even stopped sedating him.  Now he was just resting after tiring himself out with physical therapy.

“Dean,” Lisa replied into his ear in frustrated tones, obviously trying to keep her cool.  “We haven’t seen you in days.  Ben misses you.  Have Sam or Bobby stay with Castiel and come be with us tomorrow evening.  We miss you.”

“Lis!”  Dean snapped—hissing through his teeth.  “I can’t leave right now.  Something fishy is going on and I need to be here in case something happens.  Why don’t you and Ben just come here tomorrow?”

“We’ve been visiting you at the hospital, Dean, but it’s not the same.  Ben and I want to be alone with you—have dinner, maybe go see a movie or something.  Some family time.  We can’t just stay in the hospital all day with you,” Lisa ground out, clearly exasperated.  Dean imagined her pacing the length of the living room.

“I know and understand,” Dean sighed, gripping the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, head tipped down, eyes squeezed shut, feeling torn.  “I just can’t.  I’m sorry,” he replied before hanging up.  Feeling awful he flopped down into his chair, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands.  He desperately wished he could spend some family time with Lisa and Ben, but nothing could deny that Sam, Cas, and Bobby took priority over them.  He wasn’t going to leave his real family for his substitute family.  Fuck all, he sounded cold, but it was the hard truth.  He loved Lisa and Ben, but some things were more important to him, like his real family—the people who knew him best.  He felt terrible but it was just the way it was, especially with the danger he felt creeping along the periphery of this room, this hospital.

Half an hour later Cas was awake and Sam was back with dinner—Bobby had decided to go back to his motel room to continue researching.  CNN played softly on the television as background noise as they all ate.  Sam was pouring over his laptop while eating a Caesar salad, trying to dig up any more news that wasn’t being featured on CNN and Cas was sitting up in his bed picking at his own food—a club sandwich and fries—with furrowed eyebrows and a pensive face, obviously mulling over something.

“I need to get my memories back,” Cas unexpectedly announced out of the blue in a gravely serious tone.

Alarmed, Dean dropped his burger and demanded, “Why would you even want to?  You were fucking tortured for Christ’s sake!  You’re better off not knowing man.  Trust me.”

Cas sighed and rolled his eyes.  “You misunderstand.  These recent angelic activities have me wondering the nature in which I was tortured,” he replied in frustration, huffing out a breath.  “At first I assumed I was trapped and tortured because of my disobedience during the apocalypse, but now I wonder if there was more to it.  Heaven is obviously in chaos.  They are obviously warring amongst each other and taking it out on humanity while they are at it.”

“And why exactly do you think remembering any of it will help you?”  Dean angrily spat, setting his food aside.  “Once you’re free and clear of this place we’ll summon your angelic buddies—Rachel, Balthazar, or Samandriel—and get answers that way.”

“And what if they do not comply or they are dead or earthbound?”  Cas retorted, growing tense, his hands fisted at his sides, his food forgotten.

Dean frowned and leaned forward.  “So you’re saying that your own friends may not even tell us anything if they’re alive and still in Heaven?”

“As far as I know, I have not seen any of them in nearly two earthly years,” Cas replied with a forced calm.  “They could be dead or they may not be sympathetic to us.  Who is to say they won’t smite us where we stand as soon as we summon them?  They may have become sympathetic to Lucifer’s cause.  You cannot tell me none of this crossed your mind.”

Dean snorted.  “You obviously need better friends Cas.”

“Dean,” Sam said, finally looking up from his laptop and speaking, “Castiel may be right about this—“

Dean turned glaring eyes at Sam.  “You actually agree with him?  You of all people?  What?  Do you want all your Hell memories back too?”

Sam was quiet for a minute, head tilted away from Dean—hair obscuring part of his face—before looking directly at Dean.  “Yeah—yeah sometimes I do wish I could remember.  Not knowing can really fuck with your mind too, man.”

Dean gaped at both of them.  “You two have no fucking idea what you are even asking for!”  He very nearly shouted.

“Dude, chill,” Sam replied.  “I’m not saying I’m going to actively get my memories back…just that sometimes it’s a mind-fuck just not knowing.  Like I wish I remembered who pulled me out of the cage, that’s all.”  He lamely shrugged.

“Either way,” Cas added, “I need to remember.  It’s essential for me to find out what happened to my Grace and maybe remembering will aid me in its recovery or whereabouts.  You remember what I told you, don’t you Dean?”  Cas’ eyes sought his out in a pointed stare meant to intimidate.  Stubbornness and an eagerness for Dean to understand lay beneath the twin blue pools.  “If they have harnessed my Grace in any way and if the angels are at war, the human race may be in incredible danger.  Besides,” he added flippantly, “I’ve been tortured before.  It is nothing new to remember.”

Still staring, Dean flinched and tore his gaze away.  Finally, he reluctantly nodded.  “Fine.  But I want to try to get answers from your _so-called_ friends first.  We’ll—we’ll try to come up with some way to restore your memories after if it doesn’t pan out…If there is an after,” Dean snorted in derision.

“We’ll need a psychic,” Sam voiced.

“What?”

“For Cas to gain his memories,” Sam replied in annoyance, rolling his eyes.  “Like what Pamela did for Anna before getting her Grace back.”

Both Cas and Dean flinched at the names but Sam didn’t seem to notice or just chose to ignore them.  Instead he looked back down at his computer, clicking on something and rubbing a palm down the side of his jeans.

“And where are we going to find another psychic Sam?”  Dean asked in bemusement, his voice shrouded in disdain.

Sam shrugged, not looking up from his laptop screen.  “Through Bobby’s contacts again?”  He suggested unconcerned.

Dean was fully resigned to the idea even though he was still worried about Cas’ sanity; spoke up.  “What about Missouri Moseley?  Do you think she’ll help?”

“Maybe.  But dude, we haven’t seen her in almost six years,” Sam skeptically replied, finally looking up from his laptop in surprise.

“It’s worth a try though,” Dean said in an _end of discussion_ tone.

***

The next evening a knock sounded on the doorframe of the hospital room.  Looking up, Dean saw that Lisa was in the doorway, alone, with bags in her hand.  She walked into the room with a small, wary smile on her face.  “Hello Sam, Castiel, _Dean_ —I brought you guys some leftovers from dinner tonight.”

Dean stood and met her half-way, kissing her half-heartedly on the cheek and taking the bags of food, giving them over to Sam to deal with.  Lisa stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, not looking particularly happy, especially when she looked at either Cas or Sam.  “Dean can I talk to you outside?”  She asked in a quiet, yet firm voice that brokered no argument.  Resolve seemed to emanate from her.

Dean nodded with a shrug of his shoulders and followed her out of the room.

Ten minutes later they were sitting in the empty waiting room, not speaking as they sipped hot—but stale—coffee from Styrofoam cups.

“So,” Dean began uncertainly, “where’s Ben?”

“He’s staying with a friend tonight,” Lisa replied.  “I didn’t want him to be here for this.”

“For what?”  He demanded, the unsettling feeling in his stomach growing stronger.

Lisa took a deep breath and steeled herself, before turning her dark eyes back on him.  “I need you to leave.  I want you to get your stuff from my house tomorrow once Castiel is released.”  Her tone turned a bit bitter when she said Cas’ name.

Dean closed his eyes and slumped in his chair.  Running a wary hand down his face he asked, “What’s this exactly about Lisa?  Are you angry that I haven’t been there for you and Ben for the past week, because I’m sorry but I wasn’t going to abandon Cas after what he went through and I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn my back on Sam when I spent eight months without him.”  His words were bitter.

Lisa sighed.  “That’s partly the reason Dean, but not the whole reason and I think you know it.”

“Know what?”  He shouted.

“You’ve been distancing yourself from Ben and me for months now!”  Lisa glared.  “Things have been strained and I was confused at first but now I get it.  Not only was Sam gone but you also thought Castiel was dead too and it was too much for you to handle.  I understand now.  And with Castiel back…” She trailed of listlessly, looking down at her hands wrapped around her coffee cup, before looking him straight in the eye and demanded, “You really don’t think I’ve noticed have you?”

“Noticed what?”

Lisa’s shoulders slumped and she took a sip of coffee.  “You and Castiel, that’s what.”

“What the fuck are you talking about Lisa?”  He snapped, guarded.

Lisa glared over at him, obviously thinking he was playing dumb, and he might have been.  Her eyes lightened in amusement for a second before she rolled them.  Turning away, she began to explain.  “Do you realize that you talk in your sleep Dean?”  She asked rhetorically.  “Sometimes you talk about things I don’t understand—don’t even want to understand—other times you talk of Sam, but sometimes I’ve heard you speak about someone named _Cas_.  You never spoke that name to me so I assumed _Cas_ was an ex-girlfriend or something.  I shrugged it off.”  She took a sip of coffee.

“So what if I dreamt about Cas or said his name?  After finding Cas I explained to you everything—about who he was and what he did for us,” Dean replied defensively, not too sure where Lisa was going with this, but he had an inkling.

Lisa nodded.  “Yes, you explained everything to me, but I also started putting things together for myself Dean and the conclusions I’ve come up with so far do not consist of you remaining in our lives.  Hell,” she gave a helpless shrug and snorted, “Who am I to compete with an angel who saved you from Hell?”  She bitterly laughed.  “And who am I to compete with your brother also?  I know he’ll always come first and right now I’m pretty sure Castiel comes second for you.”

With furrowed eyebrows, Dean growled, “I’m confused…are you leaving me because you aren’t the most important person in my life or are you leaving me because you think something is going on with Castiel and me?”  His arms were crossed over his chest, coffee forgotten.

Lisa lightly smiled.  “I’d be an idiot to blame all this on some act of jealousy, Dean.  We haven’t been in a good place for a long while now.  I was stupid for ever thinking this could work—“ Lisa gazed off into space as she sighed.  “I always knew in the back of my mind that something would pull you away from us.”

Dean inhaled and exhaled deeply, running a hand through his hair.  “So where does this leave us?”  He inquired quietly, a bit confused, a little angry, a whole lot relieved.  He wasn’t stupid; he knew things would end like this ever since Cas and Sam came back into his life and especially after everything going on with the angels and Heaven.  He knew he would have to eventually move on—admittedly he was relieved it was finally over.  However, he was angry with himself for being so obvious about Cas.  He didn’t want to hurt Lisa, but he knew he did on some level despite her apparent acceptance.

Lisa turned back to him.  “I’d still like to be friends,” she replied.  “And honestly I think we always just worked better as friends.  You need to be with your family Dean and if you ever drive through town my door is always open and you can call anytime.”

Dean nodded, knowing Lisa was right.  “I’d like that,” he answered, before turning to her and slightly—a bit awkwardly—smiled.

Smiling back, Lisa patted him on the leg before standing up and pulling on her coat.  Turning back to Dean, she said, “A piece of friendly advice Dean, just act on your true feelings no matter how stubborn you are.  You’ve known Castiel for over two years.  Stop torturing yourself and finally allow yourself some semblance of happiness.”  Abruptly she turned away and to the elevators not allowing Dean the chance to reply.

Dean stared after Lisa, dumbstruck for several minutes, long after she disappeared into the elevator.  Dropping his head into his hands he groaned.  He never expected Lisa to say that to him, but it didn’t even matter.  He could never show, much less tell Cas what he felt because he knew Cas would never reciprocate.  Plus, he didn’t deserve Cas and even if Cas felt the same he shouldn’t bother with Dean at all because he was poison.  But, despite all that, he was perfectly fine with the way things were right now between them and he could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist:
> 
> Thirst - City and Colour  
> Not Alone - Red  
> One - Apocalyptica (Metallica Cover)  
> Hey Jude - The Beatles   
> Stay - Hurts  
> Monster - Imagine Dragons  
> Simple Man - Lrynyrd Skynyrd  
> Afraid - The Neighbourhood  
> When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin  
> Lose Your Mind - Kodaline  
> Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones  
> Moth's Wings - Passion Pit  
> Ten Years Gone - Led Zeppelin  
> Coming Home - City and Colour  
> Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) - Don McLean  
> (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult


	2. Part Two - Man in the Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel is trying to come to terms with being human as Dean is trying to ignore his feelings towards Castiel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two has been split into two sections due to size. So the second half will be posted later in the day. I may go back and split Part One up too if the mood strikes as it is pretty long.
> 
> There is a warning on this chapter for possible disturbing imagery/scenarios so please keep that in mind and keep checking the tags as I've been periodically adding to them.
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the first section of Part Two. Please read and review!

 

Castiel has been in existence for billions of years, before time, even before life was even created on the planet called _Earth_.  He’s seen everything, experienced everything an angel could possibly experience, and retained a vast amount of knowledge no human could possibly conceive of.  He has watched the first forms of life walking the planet, the evolution of that life, and the fall of humanity.  He has watched the rise and fall of empires—the grand creations built and crafted by deft human hands.  He also saw the destruction those same hands were capable of.  Castiel has seen the good and the bad, the beautiful and the hideous.  However, he never truly understood anything until he touched Dean Winchester’s soul in Hell.  That one touch changed everything—it was a domino effect that led Castiel to this very place of the human condition.

He had been human once before, well, he had thought he was fully human then, but now he knew how completely wrong he was.  This time as a human was different, felt different.  Everything was so bright, so harsh.  Now he was truly beginning to see and experience the human condition for himself.  And now he was suffering from mundane human ailments, such as muscle weakness and vision and memory loss.  It was beyond tedious and he was weary of all of the inaction.  So after spending less than twenty-four hours at Bobby Singer’s house Castiel had finally convinced all of them to summon his sister, Rachel, to see if they could finally get some more answers before more of his brothers and sisters died or end up earthbound.  He yearned for the information—the information he undoubtedly knew was locked away in his own head, yet couldn’t access.  And that knowledge could pinpoint him back to his stolen Grace.

Sam worked the spell to summon Rachel while Castiel, Dean, and Bobby made an awkward circle around the messy study.  Bobby stood at his ten o’clock in the left corner of the room—closest to the kitchen—while Dean and Castiel were positioned further back, closer to Bobby’s book laden desk—Dean at Castiel’s seven o’clock while Castiel sat a mere few feet away from him at the six o’clock point in his infuriating wheelchair, shifting uncomfortably as his tailbone annoyingly ached.

Finishing up the spell, Sam walked to the far right of the room—at Castiel’s two o’clock—and crossed his arms expectantly.  They all silently waited with tension thick in the air.  A minute passed until the familiar rustle of wings could be heard within the room.  In the very middle of the room, a female vessel appeared, containing the Grace of Rachel.  The vessel was in a very sorry state—Rachel’s clothing was dirty and tattered, fair-colored hair was messily pulled back from her face, and dirt, soot, and blood smeared her flesh.  In her right hand she held an angel blade in defense.

“Castiel?”  Rachel breathed out at the sight of Castiel sitting before her, amazement in her borrowed eyes.  “I thought you had perished at the hands of Raphael?”  She made to move forward toward him, but at that precise moment he saw Bobby—from the corner of his blurry eye—drop a lit match into the ring of holy oil surrounding Rachel.  Flames catching the oil, Rachel stopped in her pursuit abruptly as the flames barred her.  Eyes wide in disbelief, her full attention never faltered from Castiel.  “What is the meaning of this Castiel?”  She angrily demanded with a slight sheen of hurt in her eyes.

Castiel tore his eyes away from Rachel’s and averted them in guilt for trapping his sister this way.  He knew from experience what the holy fire did to an angel—it sapped their strength and powers so much so that after so long it causes crippling pain.  However, the worst part was how the fire restricted an angels’ wings.  Castiel could already tell that Rachel was not a threat to them as he knew the fire was unnecessary.

“We’ll be the ones asking the questions here,” Dean snapped, causing Castiel to raise his head in alarm and confusion at his tone of voice.  Dean appeared wary and on edge.

Rachel turned and leveled her sharp gaze on Dean.  “Really boy?”  She threateningly replied with a cant to her head.  “And who are you to be demanding answers from me or any angel for that matter?  Heaven doesn’t serve you.”

Dean smiled cheekily and drawled out, “I’m Dean Winchester.”

“Yes, the Righteous Man—the very cause of our turmoil,” she ground out, eyes flashing with disdain.  “And I do not have time for your petty games.  I must get back to Heaven immediately.  Let me go!”

“Notta chance,” Dean growled, very clearly upset by Rachel’s angry words as his jaw ticked.

Frustration boiled throughout his veins at the pettiness being witnessed.  Castiel leveled both of them with angry eyes before he barked out, “Quiet!  We don’t have time for arguing!”  Turning his full attention to Rachel with a calmer gaze he inquired, “What is the emergency you face in Heaven, Rachel?”

Rachel turned a steady gaze on Castiel before eyeing him up and down, taking in his state, sensing his ailments, before something akin to pity entered her eyes, replacing the disdain.  She walked to the edge of her fiery parameter and crouched onto her haunches, level with Castiel.  “What happened to you Cas?  Your Grace is gone.  You’re human now.”

“Yes,” Castiel asserted with a nod of his head.

“How?”  She demanded.

Castiel shook his head.  “I do not know.  I have no memory of what has happened since Lucifer was sent back into his cage,” he replied before asking again, “Why do you need to go back to Heaven right now?”

Bewildered, Rachel stated, “Heaven is in chaos Castiel.  We are at war, a war you started in the name of free will against Raphael.”

“ _I_ started a civil war in Heaven _against_ Raphael?”  Castiel demanded in disbelief.  He found it hard to imagine a scenario in which he would do such a thing, especially against an Archangel.  “Why?  What happened?”

“Raphael wanted to release Michael and Lucifer from the cage to fulfill their destinies,” Rachel answered in explanation.  “He would have killed us all if it weren’t for you.  We were at war against him for forty years before you disappeared from the battlefield.  We all thought you were dead—we couldn’t track you.  Since then I’ve taken up your position and have led our soldiers.”  She turned to Dean.  “Now, please let me out.  I can heal Castiel.  I might be able to even bring his memories back,” she pled with desperation.  “Please,” she implored as she turned full circle, addressing Sam and Bobby also.

Castiel understood now.  Of course he’d start a civil war against Raphael with those motivations and threats.  With everything Rachel had told him, there would have been no doubt in his mind he’d protect Dean from that fate once again.  He would have never let Dean’s sacrifices go in vain like that.  He would have fought tooth and nail to protect his charge.

“Dean,” Sam spoke up after a moment, shaking Castiel from his thoughts, “Get some water and let her out.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed with assertiveness, “Let her out.  Rachel is no threat to us.”

Bewildered, Dean turned to Sam and Castiel, a protest forming on his lips, just as Rachel whipped her head around and blatantly gawked at Sam.  Amazement, perplexity, and few other unnamable emotions crossed over her face as she breathed out, “Sammael?” in a questioned, reverent manner.

Castiel jerked at the familiar name as fear and hope coursed through his veins at the mention of his older, infinitely more powerful brother being mentioned.  Gazing over at Sam with a canted head, he assessed the younger Winchester.  Sam’s face was puzzled in question—brows furrowed.  He tried to stand tall, shoulders squared, but Castiel saw the ever evident exhaustion there on unsteady feet.  His face shone with a sickly sweat.  Castiel saw nothing out of the ordinary—it was only Sam Winchester—but then again Castiel was just a mere human now with poor vision.

“No,” Sam rasped out, “It’s Samuel— _Sam_.”  Uncomfortably he coughed into his shirt sleeve.

Rachel blinked several times before she shook her head in confusion.  “I’m sorry.  I thought…No matter—I’m just tired.”  She turned back around to gaze imploringly at Castiel.  “Please let me out now.  I must hurry.  I was in the middle of battle when you summoned me and I must get back to our soldiers.”

Castiel heard Bobby utter out _Idjits_ before hearing him walk into the kitchen.  Castiel listened as Bobby rummaged in the cupboards, turned on a tap, and heard running water splash against metal.  His heavy footsteps sounded on the wood floor as he entered the room again.  The fire slowly sizzled out of existence as he threw the water on the fiery blaze, making sure to avoid getting Rachel wet.

Rachel heaved out a sigh of relief as she stepped out of her prison and headed straight for Castiel.  From the corner of his eye, he saw Dean’s hands fist tightly at his sides in strain and his jaw twitch in annoyance and frustration.  Castiel couldn’t imagine what his problem was.  Crouching in front of Castiel, Rachel reached out and placed two fingers to his temple and closed her eyes.  Castiel copied suit as he felt a warm sensation traveling beneath his skin, a tingling creeping up his neck.  He felt a scratching sort of awareness in his mind and then a sharp, throbbing pain before his mind filled with blinding light and then color—

_Raphael stared down in warning at Castiel with cold, hard eyes as he stated menacingly, “Tomorrow you kneel, Castiel—Or you and anyone with you dies,” before taking flight with his electrical wings._

_Eyes closing, Castiel collapsed back onto his back and sucked in a shuddering breath of air that he really didn’t need, but it helped ease the pain that was burning through him like holy fire.  Castiel lay in the cool grass for a few more minutes before clumsily standing.  He didn’t have time to waste on something as trivial as pain.  Taking a few steps, he stumbled, but before he could fall back to the ground, a pair of small, but strong hands caught him around the shoulders.  Looking over, he saw that Rachel had caught him and was slowly easing him back to the ground._

_“What are we going to do Castiel?”  Rachel implored—sitting back onto her haunches—before Castiel could argue about being placed back on the ground.  “The Apocalypse was not God’s will.  We cannot let Raphael release Lucifer and Michael.”_

_“What can we do?  Raphael is an Archangel.  I do not yield the power to challenge him and live.  Legions of angels do not even have that type of power,” Castiel answered in a harsh, bitter tone, while wiping away the blood that was trickling out of his nose._

_“But God choose you,” Rachel insisted.  “God brought you back as a reward for averting the destruction of humanity.  God wants you to lead us!”_

_Castiel rolled his eyes—a very human reaction he learned from Sam Winchester—and acrimoniously chuckled in doubt.  “And how do we know for sure that was God’s will?”_

_Rachel huffed in displeasure before boldly placing both of her hands on each side of Castiel’s face and forcing him to look at her—eyes searching his.  “Because I have Faith.  Faith in you and Faith in our Father’s intentions,” she rejoined with absolute fervor and ferocity.  “I will stand by your side no matter what shall come to pass.”_

_“That sentiment may be short-lived,” Castiel deadpanned._

_Rachel sighed in irritation before standing up.  Offering out her hand to Castiel she steadfastly said, “Come, we must figure out a way to at least postpone our impending deaths.”_

_Castiel continued to sit in the grass for a moment longer, contemplating if he really should oppose Raphael, but what other choice did he actually have?  It was either submit, flee, or die and he never fled from any threat and he could not submit.  He always stood his ground, no matter what came at him, even if it most likely involved his undoing.  He had to at least try.  Shaking his head down at the ground in agitated amusement—derived from bitterness—he took Rachel’s offered hand and pulled himself off of the cold, hard ground._

_When will it ever end?—_

Castiel’s eyes snapped open at the very vivid, emotion-wrenching singular memory that played out like a mini-movie right on the back of his eyelids, just in time to see Rachel lean back on her haunches in defeat.  Her eyes were sad and her lips were pierced in anxiety.  In an exhausted manner she rose to her feet and placed a hand on Castiel’s cheek.  Castiel savored the warmth as his rapid breathing slowed and disappointment set in.  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.  “That was all I could manage.  Something is blocking my power.  I can’t seem to access much of my power to heal you.  Maybe another angel could do so?  I’m just so tired.”  She paused and canted her head to the side, obviously listening to our brothers and sisters.  Removing her warm hand, she desperately said, “I need to go.  If I do not perish I will return and tell you everything.”

She took a step back, preparing to leave, but Castiel shot a hand out and grabbed her wrist.  “Wait!”  He barked out in desperation.  “What of Balthazar?  Is he on our side?  Could he possibly heal me?”

Rachel’s eyes turned guarded as she hesitantly said, “No, he cannot help.  He passed on even before Michael and Lucifer were locked away,” and then she was suddenly gone in a rustle of feathers.

Chest clenching, Castiel’s breath hitched in devastation as grief consumed him at the news of his brother’s death.  Throat tightening, his eyes burned as moisture pricked at them.  It was too human, too overwhelming.  Vaguely he perceived Sam collapsing to the ground and Dean shouting, but it all didn’t matter.  At this moment he just couldn’t care so he quietly left the room and wheeled himself into the bedroom Bobby was letting him stay in.  Closing the door behind him, he pushed himself towards the window and stopped and stared straight ahead with unseeing eyes.

Fisting his hands in strain, he clenched his jaw, trying to hold in this human weakness of grief.  He couldn’t, wouldn’t succumb.  He needed to handle this news with an even mind despite the crippling pain.  Breathing heavily in and out, he closed his eyes, trying to block out everything that he heard transpiring in the next room.

Balthazar had been Castiel’s closest friend and brother in all of Heaven.  As Dean would say, they had each other’s backs constantly through every battle they had faced together.  Balthazar had even spoken up for him when he had been dragged back to Heaven and tortured for expressing emotion and doubt.  He had been the reason why Castiel’s punishment hadn’t been longer and harsher.  And now he was gone forever.

And on top of it all thousands of his brothers and sisters were dead or earthbound from a war he started.  Granted he really didn’t have any choice in the matter from what he had heard from Rachel and what he had seen in his lone memory, but that still didn’t alleviate the guilt he was feeling or the anger that coursed through his veins at how useless he truly was in this battle.

For hours he just sat there by the window, his grief slowly ebbing away and into a more relaxed state of numbness.  Growing weary, he finally moved, pushing himself closer to the bed.  It took him several minutes of struggling but he finally got himself into the bed.  Un-tucking the blanket from under him, he draped it over himself and laid quietly in the dark.

Castiel heard the creaking of the floorboards in the hall outside the bedroom, before the bedroom door slowly opened and closed as Dean entered the room.  Castiel studied his dark silhouette as Dean undressed from his many layers, getting ready for bed.  He felt a warming, a longing, tingle throughout his body at the sight of Dean—to which he chose to ignore.  He was above mundane human reaction.  Dean turned to face the bed and Castiel saw him physically jump as he let out a startled curse and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ Cas!  I thought you were sleeping!”

Castiel didn’t bother with a reply to Dean’s outburst; instead he shifted in the bed and flipped the blanket over in invitation for Dean to join him for sleep.  However Dean didn’t move from his stance at the foot of the bed.  Growing irritated at Dean’s stupidity, he glared over at him.  “Stop being an idiot Dean and get into bed!”  Castiel barked out in frustration, impatient and irritated by his hesitance.  Dean sighed before walking around the bed, climbing in while pulling the covers over himself.  Silence filled the room and Castiel felt the awkward air between them.

Turning his head towards Castiel, Dean quietly inquired, “How are you holding up?”

Surprised by the question and the very rare quiet concern in Dean’s tired voice, Castiel fell deeper into silence as tension radiated throughout his body, not knowing how to answer Dean’s question.  _How was he?_   Well, he was human, suffering from human grief and numbness.  How was he supposed to answer _that_ question?  Several minutes passed as he contemplated the words—the sheer magnitude those five simple words weighed down upon him—and the emotions he found bubbling up to the surface that someone else cared about his wellbeing when in fact said person had other things to worry about.  He found himself speaking in a stoic tone by its own volition.

“Being human is difficult,” he breathed into the dark uncertainly.  “It’s not like how it was before—everything is so bright, so loud, even though those are the senses that have dimmed the most since I became human.”  His voice hitched as emotion hit him before continuing.  “I thought having emotions before were difficult as an angel.  Admittedly it was a bit frightening, but this humanity…it’s one thousand times worse.  It’s vastly uncomfortable and vastly huge and dire—“ Castiel shifted his head towards Dean on his pillow and fixed him with intense, burning eyes.  “How do you deal with all of this pain without breaking into a million pieces?”

Castiel heard Dean’s breath whoosh out of his lungs in one long burst before sighing and falling silent in obvious contemplation.  A minute passed before Dean turned his head and met Castiel’s gaze with conflicted eyes.  “Being human means there will always be pain, Cas.  I don’t know really much else to tell you but that.  You just have to live with it and…and embrace it—or bury it—I guess.  Humanity is new to you, but not even us humans understand it.  We just have to live with it.”

“What if I don’t want to live with it?”  Castiel growled in challenge through gritted teeth.

Dean gave a bitter, mocking smile and simply answered with, “No one wants to live with it Cas.”

***

_“I thought I’d find you here, partner,” came a silky accented voice from beside Castiel a few feet away._

_Castiel immediately knew that he was dreaming—trapped within his own mind and vulnerable to outside and inside forces.  In his dream state he was sitting on a bench overlooking a park he recognized where children would normally come to play their games, but there were no children in sight.  The wind blew harshly, scattering fallen dead leaves and making the teeter-totter and swings sway back and forth looking almost like they were moving of their own accord.  The skies were overcast—the world appeared desolate and grey in nature.  His dream state felt haunted and eerie—electricity thick and sparking in the air.  It unsettled him._

_“What do you want Crowley?”  Castiel snapped in irritation, not even bothering to look at him, instead he gazed out at the playing field some distance away.  “If you have nothing to contribute then I suggest you get out of my head.”_

_Crowley chuckled.  “Is that any way to speak to your old business colleague?”  He rhetorically chided._

_Castiel whipped his head around to level Crowley with his glare.  “Business colleague?  What are you going on about, abomination?”_

_Crowley waved his hand in the air unconcerned.  “Oh…a little of this, a little of that—“ He cryptically answered with a leer.  “You’ll find out soon enough if everything goes according to plan.  After all,_ we’re just two lost _souls_ swimming in a fish bowl, _mate.”  Crowley winked at Castiel knowingly._

_Castiel canted his head at Crowley’s indecipherable words, growing frustrated at his lack of answers.  “I do not understand that reference—not that I think you meant for me to understand,” he sniffed.  “Tell me how you found me?”  He demanded._

_Crowley smiled almost genuinely.  “Let’s just say a little birdie told me where you were, buddy boy.  Talk around the water cooler said that you were dead, snuffed out by Raphael’s lackey’s…”—he looked Castiel up and down like a piece of meat—“…I have to say that I’m glad the rumors weren’t true though…we were just in the process of being…_ friends _.”_

 _“’_ Friends? _’”  He sneered out the word in distaste.  “I highly doubt that.”_

_Crowley chuckled.  “You just keep telling yourself that, mate.  You’ll see the bigger picture soon enough—“_

***

Jerking awake, Castiel breathed a shuddering breath into his aching lungs.  Sweat coated his body in a disgusting manner—the air stifling to him—and he soon realized he was entangled around Dean’s sleeping form.  The heat radiating from Dean’s human skin was unbelievably hot and uncomfortable.  The closeness was comforting, just as it was every time they slept near each other, but tonight it was also unbearably restricting.  Inching away from Dean, slowly trying to untangle himself from him without disturbing his sleep, he slid his arm out from underneath Dean.  Edging away from him, he collapsed onto his back—white-hot heat burned under the surface of his skin in-between his shoulder blades where his wings used to be.  The pain was harsh and reached muscle and sinew and even bone deep to his spinal cord.  The skin thrummed and tingled and he longed to stretch his wings, but they were no longer there.  There were some days—some moments—that he could still feel them, phantom-like, but he knew better.  The pain made that evident, even though through the course of the past three weeks the burn had grown duller.

Castiel wanted to leave the bed, to go outside and breathe in the cold winter air, to gaze up at the night sky, but he was bound by the human condition—frail and injured no less.  He couldn’t walk without some sort of support and he wasn’t even sure if he could even maneuver himself into his wheelchair by himself, but he needed to try or his lungs just may burst.  Edging himself to the end of the bed, he threw his legs over the side and painstakingly sat up.  Dean groaned and murmured in his sleep making Castiel’s breath hitch for a moment.  After a minute of long silence, he huffed out a relieved sigh but before he could try to ease himself into his wheelchair he heard a ruffle of large wings from behind him and a cursed oath as the bed jostled with Dean’s startled awakening.  Castiel quickly whipped his head around in time to see Rachel reach out, touch Dean’s temple and for Dean to slump back into bed, fast asleep.  Before he could even say a word to his sister she was at his side, reaching out and placing two fingers to his forehead.  Castiel felt a tug at his navel as he was transported into the ether.  Not a second even passed as he opened his eyes again to harsh winter air biting at his human skin.  He found himself outside, on Bobby’s porch, sitting on the top step wrapped in a very thick blanket with Rachel sitting at his side staring at him.

Reaching her small hand out, she cupped Castiel’s cheek and stated, “You’re human now with human injury and no memory of our war.  I wish I could put you back together again.”  He face was soft, softer than what was normal for the severe angel.

Castiel turned his head away and looked towards the clear nighttime sky, not really looking at it.  “I’m not broken sister—just human and adjusting to this plight.”

“Even so,” Rachel cut across almost argumentative, “I wish I could help in some way, but something seems to be blocking me.  Maybe—“ she trailed off before placing two fingers to Castiel’s temple.  Experiencing the same warmth and tingling in his body as before, he felt a pressure in his head, and then a sharp pain followed by a dull throb, before light and color exploded behind his eyes—

_“I knew you’d come to your senses, partner,” Crowley declared silkily, greeting Castiel from directly behind him._

_Whirling around, Castiel faced Crowley with steel in his gaze.  Crowley stood a mere few feet away, left hand in his pocket, while the other gripped the handle of a black leather briefcase.  “Are the souls in there?”  Castiel demanded, gesturing to the case with an incline of his head._

_Crowley glanced down at the case for a second with an air of boredom before answering.  “Yes.  Fifty thousand souls.  Ready for your consumption mate.  It was a real bitch trying to pack them all together like this too—squirmy little buggers.  You owe me one hell of a kiss for this.”  He leered at Castiel before winking at him._

_“Before this deal I want to make some things perfectly clear first,” Castiel growled, glowering over the demon._

_“Anything you want.  The world is yours for the taking, ducky,” Crowley simpered as he rocked on the balls of his feet merrily._

_Castiel took a step forward, getting into the King of Hell’s personal space, the scent of sulfur ripe in his nose.  “First, you will not go near Dean Winchester or bring him into this by any other alternative means.”_

_“Of course.”  Crowley inclined his head slightly._

_“Second, you will make sure none of your demons ever go after him or the woman and child.  And third…”—his eyes flashed portentously—“…if you betray me or lie to me I will rip this all down and smite you where you stand.”_

_Crowley waved his hand in nonchalance, unaffected by his words.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I got you.  I cannot break a deal once it’s sealed.  Dean and the whore and the whore’s bastard are as safe as kittens.  I promise,” Crowley maintained with a roll of his eyes, before taking that final step into Castiel’s personal space in a way that should have been ominous and uncomfortable to anyone who was not an angel.  “And if you betray_ me _or lie to_ me _, I will personally go to Raphael, kiss his feathery arse, and take all of the souls for myself.”_

_Castiel glared down at him, fury boiling throughout his body and Grace.  “Deal,” he growled out in a gruff voice like gravel through gritted teeth._

_Crowley sneered.  “Cheers,” he offered before closing the distance, smashing his mouth against Castiel’s to seal the deal._

_The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was a moment too long for Castiel.  Shoving Crowley away with a scowl—jaw tightened and tense—he grabbed the suitcase out of his hand unceremoniously._

_“Pleasure doing business,” Crowley drawled before disappearing into the ether._

_Jaw ticking, he set the suitcase on the ground before he unclasped the locks and opened it.  Bright light exploded into the air around him before slamming into his chest like a semi-truck—_

Eyes flashing open, Castiel panted at the overwhelming memory—so vivid it was as if he was only just living it.  Everything, every emotion and thought at the time coursed through him causing him a mass amount of confusion.

With a gasp Rachel reared back, eyes popping open as she extracted herself out of his mind.  “I’m sorry Castiel, I really cannot help any further.  Something is definitely blocking most of my power.  No angel will be able to fix you fully if I could not.”  Frustration seeped into her voice.

With the new memory still playing in the back of his mind—taunting him with revulsion and confusion—he turned back to gaze at his sister’s face that looked utterly exhausted.  “It’s all right.  I’ll find other means,” he answered in a placating way, even though he couldn’t be absolutely certain if what he was saying was even possible at this point— _If an angel couldn’t help him than who really could?_

“It is possible that by breaching the gateway into your mind, your memories may come back over time—“ she replied in thought.  “But you must know the full details of our war now.  It would do you great harm in not knowing.”

After the memory he had just received he wasn’t too sure at the moment if he even wanted anymore details about the war, but he wasn’t weak and he was no fool, he _needed_ to know what was happening so he could be prepared for any fallout.  Finally, after a minute, he nodded, letting her know to go on, but instead of explaining in simple human tongue, she brought her hand back up to his temple.  Suddenly images flashed through his mind in a whirling assault of color and noise in quick succession.

Castiel saw the chaos that was Heaven after the Apocalypse was averted, his first meeting with Rachel in his most favored generated Heaven of the autistic man flying a kite—declaring God’s desire for free will—upon his return.  He saw Heaven returning to normal, becoming peaceful, saw himself through Rachel’s eyes teaching the importance of free will to the other angels and then he saw himself cut down and bloody in the garden with Rachel imploring him on their next course of action against Raphael and the decision they had made in the glorious _Hall of Knowledge_ to go after the stolen _Heavenly Weapons_.  And through Rachel’s eyes, he saw himself back in his favored Heaven, thrumming with power as thousands upon thousands of angels kneeled and pledged their fealty to free will, God, and Castiel—

Then in quicker succession he saw—

Battle after battle—blood and violence and exploding Grace—as thousands of angels died in the war.  He saw chaos erupting once again in Heaven, worse than ever before.  He experienced the panic Rachel felt when Castiel went missing from the heart of the battle and the search that ensued after the fact.  He saw Raphael standing victoriously in the aftermath of battles as angels fled and he saw Rachel taking up his position as commander.  He also saw angels falling in fiery blazes down to earth—dead—and angels earthbound by Raphael’s and Rachel’s hands, taking up arms, forming factions, but what really made him stop and pause was that some of these factions were joining forces with a incredibly powerful demon with fiery red hair Castiel didn’t recognize.

And finally Castiel saw himself through Rachel’s eyes working with Crowley.  He saw himself with Crowley torturing monsters, collecting Alpha’s—the first of Eve’s monstrous creations—and compiling every piece of information they could get their hands on about Purgatory so they could open the portal to that realm to take in the souls in order to defeat Raphael.

Suddenly the connection was broken and he was left gasping once again as nausea rolled like ocean waves inside him.  Squeezing his eyes shut he pulled into himself, trying to keep the sickness as bay.

“Do you understand everything I just showed you?”  Rachel inquired after a moment in a calm, emotionless voice.

Castiel nodded, before bringing his head back up and opening his eyes—frustration coiling through him at this very human reaction he just had.  Shaking it off, he stated, “So we were in search for Purgatory along with trying to seek out the _Heavenly Weapons_?”

“Yes, among other things” Rachel answered before severity entered her tone in warning, “But you must understand something.  No one but Crowley, you, and I know about the plan to open Purgatory.  No other angel knows.  You must not tell anyone.”

A sudden vision of Dean flitted across his eyelids, before he breathed in and out in absolute resolve before he said, “I understand.  I will not speak of this to anyone.”

Rachel stood and gently smiled down at Castiel.  “I will keep you informed on these dealings, but I must return to Heaven now.  Good-bye Castiel,” she replied, before bringing a hand back to Castiel’s head and throwing him into the ether.  Not even a second passed before he was back in bed with Dean sleeping at his side.

Sitting there in the dark Castiel was honestly shocked at everything he had found out from his sister—everything he saw regarding the civil war and the search for Purgatory—and he was more than a little confused.  He needed to reach inside of himself and retrieve the rest of his memories.  There were too many gaping holes.  However Castiel understood with perfect clarity why he would make the decisions he saw himself doing.  He would do anything for Dean.  He rebelled for Dean, killed his own family for Dean, and died twice for Dean.  Of course he’d work with a demon to open Purgatory if it meant saving Dean.

Looking down and over at Dean’s sleeping form he sighed.

No one, especially Dean, fully understood how much he sacrificed, how much pain Castiel suffered through when he rebelled—when he was disconnected from Heaven and was forced to end his brothers and sisters who sought to hurt them.  The sheer agony of his Grace slowly being siphoned away, the sorrow he felt when the choirs of the _Heavenly Host_ vanished from his mind with absolute finality, the waning of his Faith in _God_ , who he had once believed truly cared for his children was absolute torture.  It hadn’t been easy on Castiel.  Each death had weighed a heavy toll on him—each death of one of his brothers and sisters had killed some part of him.  They had been his family, his friends since the dawning, the birthing of time.  However, Castiel never regretted rebelling, never regretted siding with Dean, and never regretted the emotions that now consumed him, searing his entire being with their fiery conviction.  He never regretted falling for Dean—a man with unshakeable faith in _God’s_ imperfect creations.  And now that he knew the circumstances he didn’t regret becoming human, because he would do anything, sacrifice anything for him.

With new determination—the first he truly felt since waking up in the hospital—he embraced his new state and made claim upon it.  He wasn’t going to give up just because he was weak and human, no, he was going to work and become strong once again—maybe not as strong and unyielding as an angel, but strong for a human, because he needed to do everything in his power to keep Dean safe.  That is all that matters, Dean’s safety.

Painstakingly, Castiel lay back in the bed and tried to get comfortable despite the shooting pains racing up his spine.  But before he could, a sharp pain stabbed his head—making him hiss in agony—as another scene began to flash behind his eyelids—

_By the time Castiel was back on earth it was nightfall and he already made his decision.  Searching for Dean, he found him sitting alone on a bench in the backyard of Lisa Braeden’s house.  Dean’s legs were stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles.  He was sipping a bottle of cold beer and gazing up at the night sky, looking to the stars.  But despite his relaxed position he still looked tense—deep lines fissured into his face._

_Invisible—on another plain of existence—Castiel took a cautious seat next to Dean and leaned his back against the bench, looking over to Dean who was oblivious to Castiel’s presence.  Castiel desperately and stupidly wished that Dean would somehow feel him and acknowledge him, but he didn’t.  Castiel was both saddened and grateful for this at the same time.  Dean didn’t need to know about this.  He needed to stay out of it and Castiel needed to keep his distance like Sam.  Dean finally had normality and it needed to stay like that.  Dean didn’t need to hear his good-byes or know that Castiel may be headed to certain death.  This was the right thing to do._

_Laying a gentle, unfelt hand on Dean’s leg—just above his knee—Castiel softly said, “Dean.  I just want you to know that I’m doing this for you.  I’m doing this because of you.  You taught me to stand up and fight for what is right and that’s what I’m going to do.  Your sacrifices will not be in vain.  I promise you this.”_

_Dean continued gazing at the stars, while sipping his beer, hearing nothing—the way it should be.  Dropping to his knees onto the ground, he placed his right hand over Dean’s left hand which was resting on his leg.  Castiel stared into Dean’s face, memorizing every detail—every freckle, every scar, every age-line.  He may die in a few short hours and he wanted Dean’s image seared into his memory._

_As Castiel studied him like he was a work of art, he saw Dean blink just as a single tear fell from the corner of his emerald eyes.  Baffled, Castiel stood up, wondering if Dean actually did hear him, but no, that was impossible.  Sighing, Castiel sat back down next to Dean and watched as more silent tears fell, before looking away to the sky to gaze at the miraculous beauty of the constellations—a beauty he had long ago forgotten to appreciate._

_Castiel ached for Dean and he longed to comfort the man, but he knew he couldn’t.  For the very first time Castiel wished he was able to cry._

_Time passed and the sun began to rise.  Dean had fallen asleep at his side and it was now time for Castiel to leave.  He only had a few hours left.  Standing, Castiel looked down at Dean before passing a hand through the other man’s sandy hair.  Moving his hand to the side of his face, Castiel leaned down and pressed a soft, friendly kiss to his forehead, whispering, “Good-bye, Dean.”  As he said his parting words, Dean leaned into Castiel’s touch and mumbled._

_Startled, Castiel jumped away from Dean, fearing that he somehow heard him in his dream-state.  Warily, Castiel gazed down at Dean, waiting—waiting for what, he did not know._

_Dean mumbled again, before opening sleep-clouded eyes, while murmuring, “Cas?”  Rubbing his eyes, he looked about him, searching, but found nothing.  Groggily, he stood and made his way to the back door of the house._

_Castiel watched Dean in startled awe as he vanished through the door—_

Gasping back into reality, shaking from a cold sweat, he lay on his back panting from the sudden onslaught of vivid memory.  He replayed the scene over and over in his mind and pondered—not for the first time—why Dean was so important to him, but only came out of it ever more perplexed.

***

_A new day is dawning, the morning sun barely cresting the horizon of dark, inky blue velvet.  Dean stands in the middle of a wheat field, the wind whispering in ears.  Encircling him is a forest echoing with laughter.  He stands alone, but in front of him stands a grand, circling staircase rising into the heavens made of glittering gold.  Fighting the urge to ascend the staircase, he turned around in confusion only to be met by a woman standing only a mere few feet away._

_Recognition hits Dean instantly as the woman closed the distance and placed a calming hand upon his cheek.  Slumping slightly at the maternal gesture, his eyes fluttered closed momentarily before opening them to be met by large blue orbs._

_“My son…” she crooned in an accented voice, before smiling, one corner of her mouth turning up more than the other before removing her hand and lithely sauntering away, past the staircase into a gleaming, rippling light._

_Dean watched the woman long after she disappeared into the ether, not noticing the tears streaming down his own face—as her sheer presence transfixed him.  She had been glorious and eternal and ancient and ever so familiar._

_Suddenly Dean realized he was no longer alone as he was surrounded by faceless, non-descript humans, staring up at the golden staircase that touched the sky.  Gazing at them, one-by-one, pure-white light exploded from them.  However he was simply unfazed as he too turned back to stare longingly at the staircase._

_The pale horse of Death neighed out in the distance as he was illuminated._

***

Jerking awake, bile rose sickeningly into his throat as Dean raced to the nearest bathroom, dropped to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet.  Heaving until there was nothing left, Dean slumped onto the floor, grabbed a nearby towel and wiped the sweat from his face.  Closing his eyes, he tried to ease the tension in his neck and head while also trying to dampen down the nausea, as the images of his dream—or rather nightmare—taunted him behind his eyelids, confusing him so much that his tension headache just got worse instead of better.

Several minutes later his nausea was finally gone, so Dean pushed himself up and brushed his teeth, before walking back into the bedroom he and Cas were sharing.  Opening the bedroom door he had somehow managed to close in his desperate dash to reach the bathroom, he found Cas sitting up in bed, his hands resting on his upraised knees, staring at him with wide blue eyes.  Stopping in the doorway, Dean’s eyes locked with Cas’ for a moment as Cas assessed him seriously.

“Are you alright, Dean?”  Cas inquired in his gravelly voice.

Breaking his gaze, Dean turned his eyes away and mockingly said, “Yeah—yeah, just dandy.”  Pausing, he looked back over at Cas and asked, “Are you ready to get up?”

With narrowed, suspicious eyes, Cas nodded, so Dean walked over and helped Cas into his wheelchair, before grabbing some of his clothes for Cas to wear and wheeling him into the bathroom.

An hour later they made their way to the empty kitchen—it was still fairly early—where Dean made the morning coffee.  Slumping at the kitchen table, Dean listened to the percolator of the coffee maker as he tried to ease his headache.  Cas was sitting at the other side of the table silently—gazing out the window as the sun dawned—with furrowed eyebrows, looking deep in thought—too deep in thought in fact.  Dean couldn’t help but wonder what the former angel was thinking so hard about, but he could hazard a guess.

Dean wasn’t exactly sure who Balthazar was, but he did realize that Cas had been close to him after seeing his reaction at the news of the other angel’s death.  And fuck all, he wished he could make it better, but Dean was never good at words or talking about feelings.  He was just plain awkward at them.  However he had been trying for a long while now but it was just difficult after a whole life of conditioning.

But damn, he had no idea what happened last night.  That angel chick, Rachel, obviously couldn’t help Cas that much if at all, but at least they knew the basics of what was happening in Heaven and they didn’t end up smote from summoning an angel Sam, Bobby, and he didn’t know.  So now they could begin connecting everything together properly.  But what confused him the most was Sam.  Sam obviously wasn’t in the best health and him collapsing the night before with no rhyme or reason added to his worry.  He wanted, no _needed_ , answers from his brother, as he obviously didn’t get any last night.  Sam had not been in a sharing mood at all and had been pretty damn ornery to boot.  However, now that he saw that Sam’s problems were resulting in his collapsing he would be goddamned if he was ever going to let this go.

Snapping out of his thoughts from the smell of fresh brewed coffee, Dean stood and walked over to the counter to retrieve a cup of Joe.  Hand on one of the coffee mugs, Dean suddenly turned his head and said, “Hey Cas, do you want some coffee too?”

A beat passed before Cas replied in a semi-surprised tone, “Yes, I think I would like to try…some coffee.”

Nodding to himself vaguely, Dean clucked his tongue softly as he filled two coffee cups and brought them back over to the kitchen table, setting one cup in front of Cas and the other in front of him.  Sitting down, Dean watched Cas gaze curiously at the steaming liquid, wrapping his hands around the cup as Dean took a sip of his own.

“Be careful, it’s hot,” Dean warned.

Cas’ eyes snapped up to his in annoyance, a spark of rebellion in his eyes.  Taking up his cup, he brought it to his lips and took a drink, swallowing harshly against the hot and bitter liquid before coughing.

Laughing at Cas’ reaction Dean doubled over in his chair, gasping for breath as he huffed out, “W-what did I—did I t-tell ya?”

In-between guffaws Dean saw Cas glare at him through red-rimmed watery eyes.  “Why would you give me that?”  He demanded in a growl.  “It was foul.”

Still chuckling, Dean got back up and went to the fridge.  Coming out with Sam’s girly coffee creamer in hand, he poured some into Cas’ cup and stirred it with a spoon.  “Here, try it now.  It’s how Sam _antha_ likes it—it’s all girly and sweet,” he mocked.

Cas gave him a wary look—a look that accused Dean of trying to poison him.

“Ah…come on.  Don’t be a baby dude.  It’s not an attractive trait,” Dean responded with a wink, drinking his own coffee with a sparkle of amusement in his eyes and voice.  “Just drink it.”

Taking Dean’s challenge, Cas lifted the mug to his mouth and took a hesitant sip before swallowing.  Looking thoughtful, Cas finally said, “This will do,” which made Dean smirk.

Silence descended upon them for several minutes before Cas spoke up and announced, “Last night, Rachel helped me retrieve a few of my memories, but none of them were of too much import.”  He awkwardly shrugged his shoulders, brows creased in the middle.

Surprised by this revelation all Dean could say was an idiotic, “Oh.”  _When had Rachel been back last night?_

“Something is blocking the retrieval of all of my memories with angelic assistance,” Cas continued in his cool, even, detached voice that made Dean instantly wary.  “An Enochian sigil, I presume it to be.”

Dean’s hands tightened around his coffee mug as he sucked in a breath, brow arched in expectance at what was to come, even though he had a strong inkling of what.

“I want my memories back,” Cas declared with conviction.  “I want them all back.”

Dean felt his tension headache coming back as he swiped a hand down his face.  “Are you sure?  We already know what fucking happened.  You don’t need to remember every goddamn horrific detail, man.”

“I _want_ to remember Dean.  I feel that I’m missing vital information.  I accept any consequences.”  He averted his eyes as he took another sip of coffee.

Dean stared down at the faux wood-grain of Bobby’s kitchen table, the feeling of foreboding twisting his gut at the thought of Cas getting all of his memories back and he wasn’t sure why.  Something seemed off about Castiel that morning.  Cas seemed numb— _well maybe not numb but more accepting_ —and reserved and it was slightly disconcerting to see after last night.  Dean supposed it may be the shock of learning that he had started the civil war up in Heaven which resulted in him losing so much of his family, but it seemed like it was so much more than that.

“What do you mean when you say you feel like you’re missing vital information?”  Dean suddenly asked in suspicion, eyes narrowed.  “Do you think Rachel was lying?”

Cas’ head snapped up as he glared over at Dean.  “No.  I just know that there are some gaps that Rachel can’t fill in my memory,” he replied in a hard voice that oozed disdain.

“ _Okay_.  Fine.”  He held up his hands in surrender, really not wanting to get into it so early in the morning when he already had a headache to boot.  “I’ll get Bobby to contact Missouri when he gets up, but I don’t even know if she’ll be willing to help or even if she’s still alive.”

Cas’ whole body seemed to lighten as he breathed out in relief, a soft smile gracing his lips.  “Thank you.”  His eyes sought out Dean’s eyes as he reached out across the table to place a hand over his in an obvious _thanks_ gesture.

Dean flipped his hand over and held onto Cas’ nimble hand, thumb stroking the soft flesh of Cas’ hand.  “No problem, angelcakes,” he replied, flashing a smile, before releasing Cas, standing up abruptly, face growing warm at their intimate moment.  “So, um, breakfast?”

“I hate that term of endearment Dean,” Cas growled at him as Dean chuckled.

Dean busied himself looking in the refrigerator for something edible to make for breakfast, which was fairly difficult considering how it looked like Sam had been the one doing most of the grocery shopping lately.  The fridge was filled with healthy crap like Greek yogurt, fruit, vegetables, and whole grain bread.  He did however find a slab of bacon and a carton of eggs.  He vowed to make his own shopping trip sometime later after picking up Cas’ prescription—for both pills and glasses.  He couldn’t live off of rabbit food.  He needed artery-clogging grease and pie and beer.

Finding a frying pan, Dean began cooking the bacon first.  “So—“ Dean began after minutes of awkward silence—on his end anyway, “—what memories have you gotten back anyway?”  He didn’t dare turn around as he asked the question, knowing that it really wasn’t any of his business what Cas remembered because if it had been important he knew he’d already know.  Prepared to be shut down and harshly at that, he braced himself, but after their _moment_ he wanted the distraction, even the distraction of anger.  He was incredibly out of his depth here with Cas—things were changing, circumstances were changing—and he was admittedly terrified.  Knowing his feelings about Cas before had been vastly different to knowing them now.  Before it was an impossible situation, but now—?  God-fucking-dammit he liked Cas too much to fuck it all up by progressing their relationship.  Plus he still had no idea if Cas even felt the same way.  Fuck.  Shit.  It was best to ignore it.

“I remembered… _you_ ,” Cas said in a gruff tone of voice.

Dean swung around.  “ _Me_?”  He demanded.  “What about me?  I never saw you once after _everything_.  Not _once_.”  Yeah, if bitterness had entered his voice he wasn’t going to deny it even though he knew he was at fault there too since he never called to Cas until two friggin’ months ago when he thought Cas was dead, but really he was being tortured at the time.  The reminder made acid gnaw at his stomach-lining in sickness.

Cas smiled his soft smile again.  “You may not have seen me, but I saw you.”

Dean huffed out a choked-off chuckle laced with contempt.  “When was this?”

“A few weeks after we parted ways I think,” Cas answered with brows furrowed in thought—a tuft of hair falling into his eyes.  “I came to you at the Braeden’s and found you sitting outside.  I came—I came to you to say good-bye.  I thought I was going to die at Raphael’s hand—“

Dean’s hand tightened around the spatula he was holding before setting it on the counter stiffly, anger rising throughout his body at this knowledge.  Cas thought Raphael was going to kill him yet he didn’t think Dean would have wanted to know, to help, or to even say good-bye?  It was a bunch of bullshit.  Was Cas that fucking daft?  Dean had the right to know what was happening to Cas and to Heaven.  Weren’t they closer than that?  He had thought so.

“Why?”  Dean demanded angrily, swiping his hand through the air in frustration.  “Why didn’t you just fucking come to me and tell me what was going on?  Don’t you think I would’ve wanted to know about this shit?  Did you think I couldn’t be even fucking bothered with a good-bye?”  He was absolutely thrown by this douchebaggery on Cas’ part.

Cas took a sip of coffee calmly before turning wide, innocent, startling blue eyes on Dean.  “You were out Dean.  I didn’t want to drag you back in,” he sincerely explained which infuriated Dean even more.  “But I did want to say good-bye—in my own way.  You do mean a great deal to me.”

Dean scoffed bitterly as his throat thickened.  “Yeah…you mean angels are just dicks, right?”  He turned back to the stove and twisted the burner off before the bacon could burn.

“I didn’t—“ Cas replied in frustration with equal parts confusion.  “I-I’m sorry—“

“Yeah—whatever,” Dean fumed as he placed the bacon on a bundle of paper towel.  “So what did you say anyway…in this so-called fucking good-bye?”  He gruffly asked.

Cas was silent for a long while.  “I told you your sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain…” Cas slowly said—seeming hesitant and shy all of a sudden.  “I said good-bye…and I kissed you on the forehead in parting.”

Dean startled, dropping an egg to the floor where it cracked open onto the linoleum.  He knew exactly when this was.  He had been sitting outside on a bench with a beer in his hand, looking at the stars, thinking about Sam and admittedly Cas.  He had fallen asleep out there, waking to one gasped out word— _Cas_.  Dean could have sworn he had felt Cas with him there that night but he had thought he’d imagined it—imagined the brush of lips across his forehead.  Apparently he had been wrong though.  His mind whirled at Cas’ words and he forgot to be angry with him, even though he knew he should be.  However Cas’ words left Dean confused.  Did he really care about Dean that much?  He had rebelled for Dean, died twice for Dean, and started a civil war for him and Sam against Raphael which had resulted in Cas’ torture and newfound humanity.  But then again Cas did lie to Dean.  The ebb and flow of emotion he was feeling felt tumultuous so he quickly squashed it down.  Why did he always have to fucking dwell?

Shaking his head, he grabbed some paper towel to clean up the cracked egg, just as Sam walked into the kitchen with a strange look on his drawn, sallow face.

“What’s wrong with you?”  Dean demanded at Sam upon seeing him, trying to redirect all of his crap onto his brother, even though he would genuinely like to know.  Sam’s antics from the night before left Dean with more questions than answers as Sam had remained tight-lipped which subsequently left Dean infuriated at the lies.  He was so fucking sick of secrets.

Sam’s eyes were cool—cruelty glinting there—as he appraised Castiel and then Dean.  “What’s wrong with _you_ , asshole?”  Sam harshly responded in a weirdly accented voice full of scorn.

“What the—“ Dean began in bewilderment before Sam’s hazel eyes rolled to the back of head—leaving nothing but red-veined whites—and he collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings unceremoniously cut.

Dean rushed over to his brother’s side, reaching him just as Sam heaved a huge gasp of air and opened his eyes.  “W-what happened?”  He panted, struggling to stand up under Dean’s strong grasp of his bony shoulder with confused, darting eyes.  Dean heard Cas wheel himself over just before a flask of holy water was drenching Sam’s face to no effect whatsoever.

Sam kept struggling under Dean’s hand but Dean wasn’t having any of it so he firmly held him down.  “I could be asking you the same thing!”  He growled, squeezing Sam’s shoulder as he spat out, “What the fuck?”

“Let’em go, son,” Bobby rumbled from the kitchen doorway in his cantankerous, gruff voice.  “I’ve done every damn test under the sun on ‘im.”  He walked into the room to Sam’s side, kneeled down onto his haunches, and grasped Sam under his armpit to help pull him up onto his feet.  Once on his feet, Bobby led him over to Dean’s vacated chair.  Sam was very unsteady—almost appearing like he was drunk.

“Okay, I’m done with this bullshit evasive crap,” Dean barked out, arms crossed upon his chest as he faced Bobby and Sam—who was now slumped over in his seat—with narrowed, suspicious eyes.  “What’s wrong with Sam?”  Cas sat in his chair next to Dean, studying Sam with frustrated intensity.

“Dean—“ Sam began but it sounded more like a groan as he hunched in on himself, pale face shining with perspiration.  “Just let—let it go,” he gasped out.

“Like hell I am!”  Dean retorted sharply.  He wanted to go to his very obviously sick brother, but self-preservation and wariness held him in place.  “What I just saw wasn’t my brother!”

Bobby glared over at Dean.  “Well it ain’t Lucifer neither so get that look off yer faces!”

“ _Then what’s going on_?”  Dean stressed, just as Sam began coughing severely.

Cas answered for Bobby and Sam to everyone’s surprise.  “Your brother came back _wrong_.”

Dean turned towards Cas.  “What do you mean _wrong_?

Cas canted his head as he brushed a finger across his bottom lip in a curious gesture.  “I may not be an angel anymore, but I can still sense _things_.”—Dean’s mind immediately flashed forward to the version of Cas from 2014 who knew instantly that he was dealing with Dean’s past-self despite being human and perpetually stoned—“I didn’t see it before, but now I do.  It’s like—it’s like a neon billboard flashing above his head.  However, I can’t determine how he came back different.”  He finished with frustrated tones, furrowed brows, and a sweep of his hand through his overlong hair.  “It’s still Sam though…just different…”

Dean turned back to Bobby and Sam.  “Care to enlighten us?”  He inquired words full of bitterness.

“I-I-I don’t—“ Sam wheezed as he dissolved into another coughing fit that left Dean more than concerned, but he stood his ground, fighting the urge to run to his little brother or offer him a glass of water or a cough drop.

Bobby rubbed at his forehead—dislodging his cap—as he sighed.  “We don’t know what’s wrong, jus’ that he’s been gettin’ worse,”—Sam continued hacking up a lung, hand over his mouth and nearly bent over in half—“Idgit doesn’t want any help, said he spent over two months looking everywhere when he got topside but found nadda.  Hasn’t stopped me none though.”  He readjusted his cap before he glared over at Sam with crossed arms even though Sam wasn’t listening.

“What are his symptoms?”  Cas asked inquisitively, as Dean walked over to the counter, opened a cupboard, retrieved a glass, and turned the cold water tap on.

Bobby acrimoniously chuckled.  “Where should I begin?  Weight loss, loss of appetite, insomnia, hallucinations—they all come and go.  One thing hasn’t changed though—he ain’t hunting-fit, hasn’t been for months.”

Dean grasped at the edge of the counter, teeth gritted in anguish and resentfulness.  Screwing his eyes shut, he took a deep breath to compose himself, and spun around, full glass of cold water in his hand.  Walking over to his _still_ coughing little brother, he laid a hand on his shoulder.  Sam took a great heaving breath, righted himself, and looked up at Dean, blood speckling his lips.  Alarmed, Dean set the glass of water down abruptly, before forcibly grabbing up Sam’s left hand—the one that have been covering his mouth a  mere few seconds ago.  Prying open the already lose fingers, Dean inhaled sharply, staggered, at the sight of bright red blood lying in a pool in his palm.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ!”  Dean cried out, dropping Sam’s hand as Cas wheeled himself closer and Bobby looked over Sam’s shoulder in concern.

Sam raised his hand to look into his palm, eyes a bit dazed looking, glittering strangely.  “Well, this is new—“

Bobby handed Sam a handkerchief to clean himself up with while Dean offered him the glass of water.  “What the hell could do this?”  Dean hissed through gritted teeth over Sam’s head, trying to remain calm when everything within him was screaming in horror.

“Nothing I’ve heard of,” Cas answered solemnly, eyes fixed on Sam.

Bobby shrugged.  “Beats me.  I’ve come up wit nothin’.”

Dean watched Sam take a drink of water before setting the glass back down on the table with a trembling hand.  He grabbed Sam about the shoulders when he slumped further down in the chair, head lolling and pulled him up with a grunt of effort.  Bobby took the other side with a groan as they carried Sam over to the sofa in the study, laying him down.  Dean pulled a blanket over his already unconscious brother, before staring down at him, terror gripping his insides into a tight knot.  Wrenching his gaze away, he walked slowly back into the kitchen.

Fixing his eyes to Bobby’s he furiously whispered, “I just got my brother back!  I’m not losing him again!”

Bobby raised his hands up in surrender.  “I ain’t arguing wit ya there, son.”

Dean sank into Sam’s vacated chair before rubbing both of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and hissing in a breath.  “Do you know if Missouri is still around?”  He asked wearily, pushing his hands up his face and through his hair, head throbbing beneath his palms.

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded as he rummaged around in a cupboard for something.  “Don’t know if she’ll be keen to help us though given our track record with psychics or even if she can.”

Dean grunted.  “Call her.  Fly her out.  Give her anything she wants as long as she comes.  Cas needs her.  Might as well see if she can help with Sammy too.  Maybe she’ll sense…or see something…”

Bobby turned around, bottle of whiskey in hand.  “I’ll see what I can do.”  He grabbed a tumbler and placed the bottle and the glass in front of Dean on the table.  “I reckon you’ll be needing this,” he replied before patting Dean on the shoulder and walking through the doorway and into the study to make his calls.

Unscrewing the bottle, Dean poured two fingers of liquor into the tumbler before downing it.  He repeated the process a few more times for good measure.  He couldn’t believe he was going through this again, this whole shit-and-caboodle of— _What’s wrong with Sammy?_   He hated this game.  It was fucking redundant and was sick of it.  He had known something was off with Sam from the jump, but he never imagines _this—this deterioration_.

Dean sighed as he rolled the bottle cap in-between his fingers, staring down and into the glass clutched in his other hand on the table.  He almost forgot how it felt to be back in the game—the hunting game—where everything was life or death, where angels and demons both dicked around with your fucking life—manipulating you so profoundly and expertly it made your head friggin’ spin not knowing what freakin’ hit you—and where the end of the world or _not_ rested on your very shoulders.  It was something you didn’t think you could ever forget, but really the mind lies and never really lets you absorb the true horrors that life and pain had to offer.  People wouldn’t be able to cope if the mind actually told you the truth.

Feeling a hand settle on his back, right between his shoulder blades, Dean startled, only to come to realize that it was just Cas’ hand.  Dean had been too absorbed in his thoughts to hear or even register Cas moving closer to him.  He looked over at Cas’ face to find that his eyes were apologetic and filled with sorrow—sorrow for Dean.  His overlong hair—hair that really needed to be cut—was hanging in his face.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Cas replied at the questioning in Dean’s eyes as he rubbed his back in a consoling manner.

Dean cynically chuckled.  “For what?”  He downed another tumbler of good ol’ gut-rot.

Cas chewed on his bottom lip—a habit he had developed since becoming human—uncertainly.  “For everything,” he simply answered, sincerity oozing out from every crevice of his body.

Despite everything, Dean felt himself falling deeper if that was at all frickin’ possible.

***

_The air was thick and humid, sweat beaded across his bare flesh.  It was night—silver stars twinkling above him like diamonds embedded in deep sapphire.  Milky galaxies swirled amongst the diamond inlay.  Cicada chirped around him in the Indian Summer heat as fireflies zigzagged about in golden streaks.  He was lying on a four-poster bed with cool, white silk sheets and he was completely naked and aroused.  To his right and above, a serpent was coiled around the canopy of the bed, lazily hanging there amongst the white lilies like a thick vine, swaying slightly in contentment._

_The world around him was surreal—ethereal—and the landscape vibrated with the heat and smell of sex and pain and pleasure and death._

_His whole body shuddered with that same pleasure and desire as Castiel slowly crawled up his length like a predatory cat before straddling him, his thighs blisteringly hot against Dean’s hips.  He appeared completely ravished—cobalt eyes glittering strangely, mostly obscured by dilated black pupil, skin shiny-wet with perspiration, dark hair curling across his forehead in moist strands.  Dean leaned up as Castiel pushed down, capturing his lips in a filthy kiss full of desperation of tangled tongues battling for dominance, the only sound around them coming from their hungry gasps.  Castiel’s hips hitched—rubbing and rubbing their cocks together in a teasing rhythm._

_“_ Cas! _”  Dean breathed out, growing quickly undone and frantic with impassioned lust, clawing at the slick plains of Castiel’s back._

_“I’ve wanted this for so long…” Castiel purred, swiping his long tongue up the length of Dean’s neck, collecting a pearl of sweat before roughly grabbing at Dean’s arms, forcibly pinning them above his head.  Castiel ground their cocks together as he mauled Dean’s collarbone, biting down as Dean arched his back, shivering, groaning, and struggling for breath all at once at the primal contact._

_“Yes…” Dean sighed in anticipation, his whole body feverish and aching for more._

_Castiel smashed their mouths together, nipping at his bottom lip before intertwining their tongues together once more, his hands caressing down the length of Dean’s arms, releasing their hold.  Breaking away to gasping breaths, Castiel sat up, eyes glinting wickedly—dark and terrifying, full of ravenous hunger—as he smirked, leaning over to run his tongue along Dean’s chest, collecting the sweat beading there.  His tongue swirled around his left nipple as he ran his fingers down the other hardened peak.  Dean’s breath hitched, eyes rolling back in his head, as his hips bucked up at the blessed feeling of friction against his hard, aching cock.  Castiel’s lips trailed down Dean’s chest leaving a hot trail to the jut of his hipbone and to the top of his hipbone as he settled between Dean’s thighs.  Rubbing and fondling Dean’s balls, Castiel’s tongue swiped across his slit, licking up the pre-come as the universe exploded behind his eyelids, stars bursting to life._

_“Yes…fuck yes…” Dean moaned, canting his hips in sheer longing to fuck into Castiel’s gorgeous mouth, but there was no warmth, no moisture.  He looked down at Castiel through a smudge of lashes, expectantly._

_“I have died for you…”—Castiel leaned down, swirling the tip of Dean’s cock with his tongue as his head slammed back into a pillow, keening in ecstasy—“…I have given everything for you…”—He kissed the base of Dean’s cock, ran his tongue up the underside before wrapping his lips around the very tip, sucking gently—“…The very Grace of God couldn’t even save me now…”—He took in as much of Dean’s length as he could, cheeks hollowing out as he sucked him down to the very back of his throat, humming.  Jolts of pleasure rocketed up and throughout his body._

_“Fuck!”  He cried out in a moan, incapable of anything else.  Reaching down, he ran his hands through Castiel’s overlong mop of hair.  He opened his eyes when Castiel’s mouth was replaced by his large hand, stroking the spit-and-cum slick base with twists of his wrists, to find Castiel furiously jerking himself off with his other hand, head tipped back, moaning dirty obscenities, eyes black as pitch with bliss.  A second later Castiel’s body seized up before shuddering.  Groaning a guttural growl of release, Castiel came—ropes of cum raining down upon Dean’s chest and stomach.  The very sight led to Dean’s own orgasm, hitting him in searing-white intensity that shattered his very soul into a million pieces.  Coming down from his high he found Castiel licking his way up Dean’s torso before his lips crashed down upon Dean’s—tasting the salty, bitter cum from both of their releases on his lips—kissing him furiously in fervor, almost angrily._

_“I want to fuck you…” Castiel purred into Dean’s ear, scraping his blunt nails down his neck to his chest, rolling his hips tantalizingly, eyes wild with desire.  “I want to fuck you until you scream, until you bleed—“ he panted as he continued to roll and rock his hips, Dean meeting him in turn, already hard again and aching._

_“I need you—“ Dean answered huskily in an ecstasy-fuelled haze, breath shallow and uneven, as wave after wave of shuddering elation coursed through him.  He wanted nothing more than the man above him to covet him wholly._

_Castiel grinned ferociously—teeth appearing sharp in the starlight—as his hands slid down Dean’s torso as he sat back on his haunches.  His hands caressed his flesh in feather-light touches down to his thighs leaving Dean a shivering mess in anticipation.  Wedging his knee between Dean’s, he took a hold of his leg and pushed it up, spreading Dean open.  Castiel stroked Dean’s ass before his fingers brushed his hole once, twice, three times teasingly, leaving Dean quivering and struggling for breath._

_Castiel’s other hand sought out his Mark upon Dean’s shoulder before digging his nails into the raised scar tissue violently—drawing blood.  Dean’s eyes rolled back into his head as the world once again turned white and exploded around him._

_Dean came to from the weighty sensation of Castiel’s cock pressing heavily against his hole, pushing in, breaching the tight ring of muscle—shouting out at the intrusion in equal parts pain and pleasure, his hands fisted around the bed sheets.  Soon he was completely filled, the burn of the intrusion quickly ebbing away to make way for pleasure.  Dean’s short nails raked down Castiel’s back, drawing blood, as he hooked his legs around Castiel’s waist, thrusting down upon his cock, needing more—dying for more._

_Castiel instantly began to move, pulling out and then slamming back in without an ounce of restraint or thought to Dean’s comfort.  Their breathing was heavy—their moans of pleasure rapidly turning into grunts and shouts and filthy words as they fucked and fucked and came and came in a never-ending cycle of true rapture._

_“I love you…I love you…I love you…” Dean panted in ardor as he came again._

_“I am damned because of you…”—Castiel brought his lips down to Dean’s in a dirty, messy kiss of clashing tongues—“…I’ve become a monster because of you…”—His eyes were glittering darkly, completely black as he roughly thrust in and out, in and out, to the point of pain, but Dean didn’t care, savoring the pain and keeping it close to him—“…I will die again because of you…”—He shuddered again in release, emptying himself inside of Dean.  He slipped out as he pulled Dean to the edge of the bed where he entered him again without hesitation, Dean wrapping his legs tightly around his waist—“…I hate you…”—Castiel panted feverishly, thrusting in and out of Dean harder than any time before as if in punishment, in hatred.  He leaned forward, wrapping a large hand around Dean’s neck maliciously and squeezing, cutting off his air supply, hips never faltering.  Castiel tightened his hold without an ounce of hesitation just as they both came in an explosion that ripped the heavens apart._

_The last thing Dean saw was Castiel’s eyes reflecting the sky—a whirling galaxy exploding around them as fiery comets of fallen angels cast out of Heaven fell to earth—before everything faded into death and decay._

_***_

Dean awoke breathing harshly, sweat coating his entire body, and rock hard from his erotic nightmare.  Shivers of lust detonated underneath every square inch of his flesh feeling like one touch could set him off.  It was still dark, the room stifling, and he found himself entangled with a sleeping Castiel.  Growing rigid at the thought of Cas hearing any excited bedroom noises coming from him or seeing the state he was in, Dean slid out from under his limbs, slipped out of bed and tiptoed out of the room and into the bathroom to take care of his _little_ problem.

Turning on the light, he twisted the hot water tap of the shower on, before undressing—bedclothes moist with sweat and sticky with cum.  He cursed when the band of his sweats caught on the tip of his aching erection.  Stepping into the shower, he hissed once again when the hot water rained down on him.  Taking his hard-on in hand he swiped his thumb across the slit and gasped as an instant orgasm hit him with an electrifying, white-hot intensity, coating the shower tile in front of him with ropes of cum.  Coming down from his high with shaking limbs, he cleaned up his mess before setting out to wash away the night’s filth.  However, as he ran his soap saturated washcloth down his stomach and to his groan, he found himself instantly rock hard again, as if he was still a fucking teenager.

Taking his cock in hand, he winced at the raw aching he found there.  It felt as if he had been fucking into someone for hours or jerking himself off for an equal measure of time.  Removing his hand he turned on the cold water and let it rain down upon him in icy sheets, trying to will his erection down, but to no avail.

Groaning he grasped his cock, twisting and pulling with fervor, hoping for another quick release, but this time it went on and on and on.  Panting heavily, he braced one hand against the tiled wall as he continued to stroke himself deftly on shaking legs as images of Cas fucking into him assaulted his memory—firing at all of his synapses—from his nightmare.

However the image of Cas’ swollen and red lips wrapped around his cock, sucking him so hard that his cheeks became hollowed out as Dean _fucked his mouth_ was what sent him over the edge.

The orgasm hit him with a blast of exhilarating elation—that exploded behind his eyelids in white bursts—as he keened out Cas’ name.  Ropes of come painted the wall before him as he shuddered in sheer ecstasy, milking his cock until he was completely spent.  Coming down from his orgasm, tremors shook through his entire body, as he found himself shaky and wobbly-legged, very near to collapsing in a heap.  Bracing himself once again, he felt like he had just fried a million brain cells and he found himself completely sated, as if he’d just fucked for real.

Dean leaned the entirety of his trembling body against the tiled wall, still panting hard—heart jack-hammering in his chest—as he groaned in resignation.  He’d been fooling himself into thinking that he could ignore his feelings and urges towards Castiel, especially while staying in such close quarters with the ex-angel.

_Fuck.  He was severely screwed to all Hell._


	3. Part Two - Man in the Box (Con't)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel is trying to come to terms with being human as Dean is trying to ignore his feelings towards Castiel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for the delay and also the messiness I'm developing within the notes. I'm new on AO3 so I'm still figuring stuff out. I'll try to tidy up more soon.
> 
> I would also like to say that my next update probably won't be for at the very least a couple of weeks. I've only just begun the write-up of Part Three, so please be patient.
> 
> Anyway, please read and review!

Dean Winchester was completely fucked and not in the good way.  No, he was fucked in the royally screwed sense of the word.  Ever since his fucked-up erotic nightmare his restraint was getting harder and harder— _Yes, any possible entendre intended_ —to control.  It was almost as if he had been put under a sex spell and yeah, he’s been under one of those before— _damn witches!_ —and those kinds of spells could be some of the nastiest mojo under the sun.  He just couldn’t believe he let himself get this deep.  He was _Dean-motherfucking-Winchester_ , the love’em-and-leave’em kind of guy and it went with the gig.  He didn’t get all moon-eyed for anyone, except for Cassie ages ago and Lisa when he had visions of picket-fences and apple pie dancing before his eyes.  And truth be told he never was actually _in love_ with either of them.  He had thought so once upon a time but when the real thing actually hit…then _WOAH!_ and things get clearer even when you try to ignore the neon signs spelling it out for you everywhere.  And even when things _are_ spelled out for him, he usually always buried them.

He always did what was expected of him—the ghost of John Winchester always taunting him from the sidelines.  Dean loved his dad and knew that despite all of the crap John loved his sons too, but John always pushed Dean into being his exact replica if not what he thought the perfect man, the perfect hunter was.  Even today Dean wore the clothes John would approve of, listened to John’s music and drove John’s old car.  He buried his emotions just like John would approve of and was only seen out with women like any other normal Joe off the street.  Dean wasn’t his own person by any means and he was terrified to show the world who his own person was.  Any weakness, any trait he exhibited that wasn’t _normal_ must be hidden.  However he was tired of hiding.  He wanted to be himself, but was terrified to do so.  It was the ultimate conundrum.  How could he do what felt right verses thirty-three years of being told it was wrong?  How could he really be this selfish when it felt like the very world counted solely on him?  How could he even be thinking about himself and his fucking love life when both Sammy and Cas are going through something major—something possibly traumatic and earth-shattering?  One word— _Selfishness._

_Yeah, he was a real winner._

He just couldn’t even believe that his nightmare hadn’t put him off entirely on the subject of Cas considering it had left him with a great sense of foreboding.  He truly was poison for Cas, because looking back not one good thing had happened for Cas since rebelling.  Dean was Cas’ death.  He truly wasn’t no good for the ex-angel so why should he try to become closer to said ex-angel?  The closer he got with someone the more horrific their life was and Cas wasn’t exactly indestructible now.  No, he was human and fragile which meant he could die at any minute from the most mundane and human of ways.  Dean knew one of the traits that had attracted him so much to Castiel at first had been the fact that he was hard to lose despite the fact he’d already died twice.  Castiel always came back and pretty much the only thing that could actually kill him was another angel.  Now, it was different.  Now, things were more complicated which was saying a lot.  And it was why he continued torturing himself.

He had other things to focus on—more important things—like taking care of his little brother and getting Cas healthy and later hunter-fit.  Plus the world was most likely in the frying pan once again—the never-ending cycle of terror.  He just hoped Missouri had some answers…

***

It was three days later and things were just getting worse.  No, the planet wasn’t roasting, Sam wasn’t on his death-bed, Cas hadn’t been shish-kabobed by Raphael, and Bobby hadn’t taken up knitting.  However, Sam wasn’t sleeping—only catching a few feverish winks here and there—and barely eating and it was catching up on him fast, dissolving into shaky limbs and frequent dizzy spells.  Cas, well, Cas had taken to the avoidance route on everything which resulted in one-worded answers and one-sided conversations and taking a keen interest in television.  And Bobby just tried to stay out of Dean’s way while researching and doing the phones for other hunters.

Now, Bobby was off picking up Missouri from the airport, Sam was still stubbornly refusing to eat—even when Dean conceded and made him some of his favorite foods like _salad_ —and Castiel was sitting in his wheelchair—new black-rimmed glasses resting on his nose—completely enamored by a Spanish telenovella playing out on Bobby’s old TV set, and Dean was playing at being nursemaid/mother-hen and getting royally ticked off as a result but hiding it well at the same time.

Unceremoniously depositing a tray of tomato-rice soup, crackers, and water in front of Sam where he sat at the kitchen table—hunched over a stack of dusty tomes and blanket covering his shoulders—Dean expectantly waited to see Sam’s response to the food as he hovered in a way that was sure to make Sam uncomfortable.  Sure enough Sam shoved the tray of food away like always lately.

Dean crossed his arms over his chest.  “Yeah, we could always do the whole airplane thing with the spoon,” he taunted with narrowed eyes.  “Dude, when was the last time you’ve ate?”

Sam looked up at Dean with blurry, unfocused eyes, before blinking rapidly.  “I-I don’t—“

“Day’s Sam!  It’s been over three days!”  He barked out before pulling out a thermometer.

Sam eyed the thermometer incredulously.  “When’d you get that?”

“When you started throwing off heat waves,” he succinctly answered.  “Here.”  Dean thrust the thermometer at him, which promptly made Sam stand up suddenly—blanket falling to the old and cracked linoleum—which resulted in Sam stumbling back a little on unsteady feet.

“Enough Dean!  Please,” he begged, holding up his hands to ward Dean off, gasping in deep breaths from his sudden, dizzying movement a few seconds before.  His gaunt, exhausted face shone with sweat.  “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Well, it’s pretty damn hard to ignore,” Dean glared up at him.  “The bloody tissues, the fever, the hallucinations, the shaky legs…this is not even remotely fucking good!”

Sam sighed, dropping back into his chair in exhaustion, elbows on the table as he swept his large hands through his long, stringy hair.  “Well, I’m not good.  And I’m not going to get any better when we have no answers.”

Dean rolled his eyes in exasperation.  “Do you even think you’re in the position right now to get’em?  You’re shutting down!”  Dean swallowed harshly as his eyes burned.  “I want answers, believe me I do, but that’s what Missouri’s for.  You gotta let me take care of you man.  You gotta let me help you get your strength back.”

“Look, this isn’t a cold.  Or a fever, or whatever it is you’re supposed to feed,” Sam explained, reaching a shaking hand out to grasp his glass of water before bringing it back up to his mouth and taking a sip.  “Whatever this is…it’s changing me, Dean.”  He gazed up at Dean with eyes pleading for him to understand and Dean did, goddammit, he did.  It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that whatever was happening to Sam was changing him.  However, that didn’t mean he had to listen to his younger brother.

Dean pushed Sam’s tray back over to his brother.  “Just eat up.  I’m not going to watch you starve yourself to death.”  At that Dean stormed out of the kitchen with two plates of sandwiches and deli-made potato salad along with two bottles of beer to eat his own lunch in front of the television with Cas.

Handing over Cas’ plate and beer, he sat down on the edge of the couch before cracking open his bottle.  “So what’s happening?”  Dean asked as his eyes settled on the telenovella playing in front of him—trying to distract himself—but got no response other than an impatient, “ _Shh…!_ ” that made him roll his eyes and snort.  The ex-angel loved his daytime melodramas apparently.

Gazing over at Sam in the kitchen as he took a bite of sandwich, he was happy to see that his brother was at least attempting to eat his meal; however it looked as if the whole process pained his brother, but at the moment he didn’t really care.  Sammy needed his nutrients.  It was hard enough as it was trying to feed an ex-angel when Cas didn’t even know what he liked and what he didn’t and often forgot to feed himself, so right now it fell to Dean.

Ever since finding out about Sam’s _condition_ a few days ago Dean had been keeping an extra vigilant eye on his brother, noting any minuscule change in him and what he had found left him sick to his stomach.  It appeared as if Sam _was_ actually deteriorating right before his eyes and it terrified him.  And apparently things were just getting worse for Sam—according to Bobby—and just in the past few days things were escalating drastically.

Conditions definitely weren’t exactly kosher at the moment at all and he feared what would happen if shit really did hit the proverbial fan, knocking at the front door.  Once upon a time they took the hits that kept on coming, but now he didn’t think they were capable of much.  A year ago they had been a ragtag group with problems a mile long for each of them, but now Team Free Will was lacking considerably, not that he ever thought their little group was _all that and more_ to begin with.  But now they were dealing with a rapidly deteriorating hunter who actually hadn’t hunted in several months, a washed-out hunter who hadn’t so much as thrown a punch in nine months, and an ex-angel who basically couldn’t even take care of himself at the moment.  So they weren’t exactly Team Free Will at the moment, rather like Team Pathetic-but-still-Hanging-in-There.  Actually, besides the details of it all, it was exactly the same as a year ago.

Finishing up his lunch, a thump sounded from the kitchen.  Looking over Dean found Sam’s head on the table, seemingly completely unconscious.  “Finally,” he breathed as he dusted his fingers off on his jeans.

“ _Finally_ what?”  Cas inquired, actually stepping out of his one-word responses to everything—although it was a commercial break—and gazing over at Sam’s sleeping form curiously, head tipped to the side.

Dean grimaced guiltily.  “The sleeping pills kicked in.  Smashed them in his food.”  He picked up their discarded plates and beer bottles before going back into the kitchen.  Depositing them, he grabbed Sam under the shoulders and heaved him up with a grunt—Sam was still pretty heavy even after losing some of his muscle mass.  Slowly, Dean drug Sam into the study—his brothers head lolling as he groaned sleepily—and to the couch, laying him down.

Pulling a blanket over him, Dean checked his forehead to find it burning hot to the touch, which continued to worry him even more.  However before he could take his hand away, his arm was snatched as Sam opened his eyes—eyes that appeared to be gazing at something faraway—wide as he tried to fight off the exhaustion from the pills and lack of rest altogether.

“Sammy?”  Dean hesitantly questioned—pulling his arm out of Sam’s grasp—as he sat at the very edge of the couch cautiously.

Sam reached out again, laying a hand on Dean’s shoulder for a mere second before promptly falling down to Dean’s elbow, and pulled him closer.  “Hey, do—do you remember when…uh…dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon…on that pack-mule ride?”  He tiredly asked, barely conscious, and obviously out of his gourd at the moment.

“The what?”  Dean replied in confusion at the vague memory with arched brows.

“And you’re…uh…mule kept farting, just—l-letting go…like gale force?”

His arched brows suddenly furrowed.  “Dude, you were like, four years old.  I barely even remember that.”

Sam let out a tired, completely delirious laugh that quickly turned into a hacking cough.  “Y-you rode a…f-farty donkey!”

Dean’s cheeks reddened a little as some more of the memory came back to him.  As Sam settled down, Dean patted his face and gruffly said, “You need to get some sleep.”  Sam’s eyes immediately drooped and then he was asleep, the drugs finally taking full effect.

“What the hell…?”  Dean muttered as he shifted his position to sit forwards, elbows on his knees as he rubbed at his face with open palms.  “I just don’t get what’s happening to him…None of this makes sense.”

Dean heard a rustle off to his side so he glanced up at Cas who was staring at him with an unusual expression on his face.  “You rode a flatulent donkey?”

“Oh, shut up!”  Dean snapped in exasperation.

***

Not long after Sam fell into his drug-induced, perpetually fitful sleep, Bobby arrived home—lugging a large suitcase—with Missouri in tow.  Dean found himself flinching when he saw her despite the fact that he had asked her to be here and that she was specifically here to help Sammy and Castiel.  He just couldn’t help himself.  Missouri was just a larger than life force despite her short stature, and took no-shit from anyone, and gave him the creeps at times when she knew exactly what he was thinking or was about to do.  Not to mention, she was pretty partial to slapping him upside the head and calling him out on his bullshit.  However she was needed.

Missouri sauntered into the house like she owned it, eyes alert but also soft at the same time as she took in her surroundings.  She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Cas with shock on her face that quickly faded to sympathy before passing over Dean completely to settle an unnerving gaze on Sam’s sleeping form with pierced lips and narrowed, worried eyes.

“This house is filled with misery,” Missouri observed, looking around the room, before turning on Dean with an accusing glare, “Why didn’t ya call me here sooner, boy?”

“I called you as soon as I knew everything,” Dean retorted with crossed arms.

“Some things never change.  You’re still a sass-mouth,” Missouri replied with a shake of her head.  “Okay, time to get to work.”

***

The Holy Father loved everything in creation and everything in creation with the capability was meant to love God even though free will deemed it as choice and sometimes circumstance didn’t allow it.  However, everyone was meant to fear God’s wrath—for God must seek retribution for one’s sins and the wicked must be punished.  And God’s greatest punishment was to send souls into the pit.  This also extended to angelic Grace. 

Castiel understood this and accepted it for what it was because the _wicked_ must be _punished_.

However he couldn’t help _remembering_.   Castiel remembered the Glory days of Heaven, back when it was peaceful, loving.  God had been all around them then in his embracing arms.  But then the creation and evolution of the _Homo Sapiens_ changed everything.  Not only was Heaven opened up for human souls to dwell in, but God demanded the angels to bow down before humanity and love them more than Him.  And of course this resulted in the Morning Star to fall from the Heaven’s and be cast into the pit.  But as Lucifer fell, so did many others who sympathized with him as well as those who fell prey to human weakness.  The Watchers of Heaven—the Grigori—were cast into Hell—all two hundred of them—for teaching humans the art of weaponry and magic among other things as well as committing one of the greatest acts against God—falling in love with mortals, thus creating the abominations that were Nephilim. At the time Castiel mourned the losses of these brethren greatly, as did every angel, but soon the songs of the Holy grew, echoing in despair when more and more angels fell—thousands just in the last millennia—but this time most of their own volition.

At the time Castiel never questioned why falling to earth was so much more sorrowful to the Host than being cast into the pit, but now he thought he may know why.  Was being tied to earth with a soul any different from suffering in the darkest depths of Hades?  Earth had its own way of skinning one alive, of laying ones soul out bare and bleeding for others to rape.  Humanity had its own chains and racks that left one cold and broken in its wake.

Castiel understood the mechanics of human souls, but they were a vast mystery to him all the same—growing more and more mysterious as everyday passed.  Often he found his mind pondering the metaphysics behind what made Grace _Grace_ and what made souls _souls_.  He also couldn’t help but wonder what happened to a vessel if the Grace of an angel was removed.  Did a tiny piece of Grace linger, metamorphosing into a soul?  Did a new soul automatically manifest?  Was there any human soul at all, or did a mutated soul just pop into place?  There was absolutely no precedence to something like him—he had been an angel in a body crafted with Jimmy Novak’s DNA to look like his former vessel and then his Grace had subsequently been ripped from said body.  What was inside of him now?  Was it even a human soul?

Castiel just wasn’t sure about anything anymore.  He used to have all of the answers and even if he didn’t have the answers he was always sure about God’s _will_.  Being an angel had been easy until he gripped Dean Winchester’s soul tight and raised him from perdition.  Circumstances became difficult after that one act and he had begun to question everything.  He had been lost after that one act.  And if he had thought he was lost before, it was nothing compared to being trapped within the human condition.  He was more lost than ever before.  Humanity was physically painful, but human emotions were complex and hard to define.  The problem was, however, that he didn’t feel much of anything.  It was disconcerting and he couldn’t help but wonder if his condition resulted in him coming out of his ordeal _wrong_ in some way.  Often his mind wondered if his soul was intact properly, because surely he must have a soul if he could _feel_ , but maybe the soul within him wasn’t fully developed or it was mutated?  He honestly didn’t know.  All he knew was that he felt numb, almost outside of his body and he wasn’t sure why and honestly it kind of petrified him—and that there led to a whole new series of questions.

The long and short of it was that being human was miserable and bewildering and the best course of action was avoidance, which essentially turned out he was very good at.  He was also very good at dwelling on particulars and on certain confusing behavior that Dean was broadcasting—in his sleep as well as awake.  He just couldn’t grasp the enigma that was Dean.

But now the psychic Missouri Moseley was there and for the first time in a long time Castiel let himself hope—hope that he would finally get the answers that Rachel couldn’t provide for him and answers to his most internal questions.  However, he didn’t hope for much.  Hope was such an exhausting emotion.

Missouri Moseley was a middle-aged woman of short-stature with skin the color of melted chocolate and emanated an air of serenity.  However, her forthrightness and brazenness was what really made Castiel look up and take notice of the woman in front of him, a woman who could look into one’s very soul and see all the workings there, and that’s exactly what Missouri was doing to Castiel.  Most of her attention was on him as she set Bobby and Dean to task laying down extra protection and cleansing the whole house of negative vibrations.  He had thought the assertive woman would pay more attention to Sam since he really was the one in dire need these days, but instead it seemed like she’d taken an ardent interest in Castiel and perhaps she could _see_ that he used to be an angel, but he wasn’t sure of the power she held at her disposal.  Could she tell?

When she shoo-ed Bobby and Dean away to set out on their work, Missouri completely zeroed-in on Castiel and swept over to him.  “Let’s talk,” she said with a tiny flicker of a sympathetic smile, as she pushed Castiel’s wheelchair to the far corner of the study—next to Bobby’s chaotic desk—where she pulled the desk chair out for herself and sat down before taking his hands in her own in a friendly manner that exuded tranquility and trust.

“Are ya sure you want to recover your memories, honey?”  She asked with gentle eyes.  “Because the anguish and confusion I see in you could bring me to tears.”

Castiel eyed Dean where he was positioned in the kitchen _working_ , however he was quite clearly watching and listening to them converse, before lowering his eyes and bowing his head in indecision, as he chewed at his chapped bottom lip.  A minute later he raised his head in resolve, eyes hard and jaw firm.   “Yes.  I need to know what happened.  I believe it’s the right thing to do.”

Missouri nodded in understanding.  “It is.  Sometimes taking in more pain is necessary despite what others may think…”—her eyes sought out Dean momentarily—“…You’re a soldier and you can endure anything…”  Missouri trailed off as she squeezed his hands within her own, frowning uneasily.

Castiel gazed at her expectantly with arched brows in apprehension.  “I have the feeling you have more to say on this subject—“

“You’re human now, Blue-Bird,” she stated openly, “and you don’t have to fight anymore if you don’t want to.  Heaven.  Hell.  You don’t need to get involved any further than what you have.”

At her words, Castiel grew rigid in his chair, hands clawing at the armrests, as he focused an intense stare on Missouri, knowing immediately what she meant.  She had seen Castiel’s already returned memories and the memories that Rachel had bestowed upon him.  She had seen his plight against Raphael and his dealings with Crowley.  His face burned with shame as he contemplated her other words about leaving everything behind, but he knew what she said really didn’t matter.  He may not be an angel anymore, but he _was_ still a soldier at his very core.  He _still_ cared about Dean more than his whole life and he couldn’t just stop aiding the Winchesters.  Helping them is what matters, more than everything.  Swallowing harshly, he turned his focus onto something else entirely—something that left him perturbed.  “Why did you call me that?”  He demanded severely.

Missouri gently smiled.  “I can see your soul and it shines so brightly.  It’s the very essence of your Grace and it is cast in a bluish hue that expands from your back like an extended pair of wings.”

Castiel’s eyes burned fiercely as he averted his head and eyes away.  Taking a deep shuddering breath, he found that his hands were shaking visibly, as he turned his gaze back up.  “So-so it’s there?  All of it?  A human soul?  I was so unsure—“

“Oh, my poor boy,” she murmured poignantly, leaning forward to place a compassionate hand on Castiel’s cheek, thumb running across the bone there.  “You are wholly human and your soul is new.  It just needs to be nurtured.”

Castiel felt all of his sorrow rising up in him like a tidal wave as he raised a trembling hand to his face.  Touching his face, the tips of his fingers came away wet.  Looking down at the evidence he felt his body shudder in astonishment.  _He was crying_.  So this is what it felt like to cry?  This incredible pain—both physical and emotional—growing in frequency and force readying itself to explode from him like a supernova?  He had never felt such a release before.

Missouri pulled him close before wrapping both arms around his ribs in his first ever embrace, saying softly, “Shh…Just let it out—let it all out.  It’ll make ya feel better, honey.”

_And miraculously it did._

***

As Dean put together the ingredients to cleanse the house with while Bobby laid down even more protections around the houses parameter, he watched and listened as discreetly as possible as Cas and Missouri talked in the far corner of the study.  And what he heard left him feeling cold.  Dean had no idea what Cas had been going through, none at all despite his obvious avoidance of all subjects pertaining to him.  But what really did him in was seeing Castiel’s first tears and first true, compassionate—or otherwise—hug and it left a pit of frenzied jealousy within him at the sight as well as the heat of shame coloring his face.  He should have been the one to comfort Cas, not Missouri and it really was all of his fault for not seeing what Cas was going through in the first place—all of the fear and uncertainty.  He had been too focused on Sammy, like always, when he should have been balancing his time between the two.

Dean didn’t hear or sense Missouri’s approach until he felt her hand fall down on his shoulder and pressing into the muscle there.  Turning around—hand falling away—Dean slanted his eyes down to her expectantly, half-wondering if he was going to get an earful at seeing her hard stare and he was right.

“Why exactly aren’t ya taking better care of your angel?”  She demanded with slitted eyes.  “His soul is new to this world.  He needs comfort in the same way a newborn does.  I oughta smack you, ya damn fool!”

Taken aback at her accusation, he gawked down at her.  Dean wanted to argue, but what came out was a perplexed, “What?”

“He’s in a very vulnerable state and he was increasingly becoming withdrawn,” she snapped with fisted hands before adding in mystification, “How is it even possible when you care for him so much?”

Dean gaped at her as the heat rushed to his face.  Snapping his mouth shut, he clenched his jaw in defiance, brows puckering.  “I-I don’t—“

Missouri smacked him on the shoulder as she fiercely glowered.  “Don’t ya dare lie to me boy!  I can see right through your every damn façade.”  She paused, still glaring up at him.  “I’ll give you a piece of advice—get your head outta ya ass and give him what he needs.”

For once in his life he couldn’t find the words to speak, not even a scathing remark or an angry refusal or a reluctant admission.  Nothing passed his lips.  Instead he slumped down into the closest chair to him at the kitchen table, one hand placed on his sitting hip and the other wiping at his brow despondently and full of guilt as he had withdrawn from Cas in the last few days.

Missouri’s face softened, filling with sympathy as she took the seat opposite him with a sigh.  “You’re daddy was a good man, but he was a damn fool for teaching ya to bury everything just so you could get the job done.  Pretty soon it’s going to eat you until nothing is left but darkness.  Let yourself find some semblance of happiness, for once.”

Dean’s throat clicked as he tried to swallow around the lump of heartrending panic that had formed there.  Instead of trying to speak past the obstruction he harshly nodded one jerk of his head and coughed uncomfortably.

Missouri reached across the table and patted his arm sympathetically with a fond smile.  “I know it’s tough to face, but just think on it, okay hon?”

“Thank you,” Dean brusquely responded, avoiding her tender, understanding chocolate eyes.

Missouri took a deep breath.  “Anyway,” she smiled reassuringly, “Tonight we’ll try to get Castiel’s memories back and if it works he may be needing ya more.”

Dean shifted in his seat, pressing his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his closed eyes.  “Um…when will you be reading Sam?”  He asked through his still painfully constricted throat.

Missouri frowned.  “Oh, honey, I already did.”

“And?”  He asked, raising his head in anticipation.

“And I’m not sure what I saw or even how to describe it—“ Her face continued to line with empathetic concern.  “All I know is that this goes beyond my capabilities.  I can’t help him.”

Dean cast his eyes down at the faux wood-grain of the table feeling browbeaten.  He stared down at the knicks in the old table as his eyes crossed and blurred.  Even before Missouri arrived he had a sense of foreboding that she wouldn’t be able to help with Sam when apparently nothing had helped before, but he had hoped.

“Was there anything—“

Missouri sighed.  “I can’t say this for certain but it felt to me as if something _dark_ was feeding off of him, his soul, like a parasite…”  She paused, fear entering her eyes as she wrung her hands.  “I suggest that you do everything in your power to save your brother.  Whatever is doing this to Sam is _evil_.”  She ended in a strained whisper.

Dean raised his clasped hands up onto his elbows as he leaned his head wearily against them.  Terror was sweeping through Dean’s whole being like an electrical current at her portentous words.  “Do you have any time frame?”  He croaked out.

Missouri continued to wring her hands fretfully, face creasing with pain.  “A month…maybe less…at the rate his soul and body are deteriorating…”  Her normally self-assured demeanor wavering.

“ _Son-of-a-bitch!_ ”  Dean muttered fiercely into his hands—hands that felt like they were going to start clawing at his face at a moment’s notice.  “And there is absolutely nothing you could do?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“ _Fuck!_ ”

“I wish I could do more…” she said with a weary, sorrowful, apologetic quirk of her lips.  “But this is more than my abilities or knowledge can handle.”

***

Castiel never imagined he’d be reborn.  Not once did he ever think that he’d be reborn as a human, with a new human soul from beneath the Throne of Glory—God’s own throne.  He remembered his first birth and knew his own origin story.  Castiel was the very last angel to be created by God eons ago before time itself.  He recalled his Father’s voice as he called Castiel _special_ and he remembered the feel of his large hands as he deftly crafted Castiel out of stardust before adding other elements and traits into him.  Along with the stardust, Father added droplets of glacial spring water, shavings of the stone from the highest mountain peaks, flecks of lapis lazuli, obsidian, and gold, a feather of a blue bird not yet in existence, and the smallest bit from a pulsing bolt of lightning.  Father also instilled upon him the traits of loyalty and unconditional love—which wasn’t any different from any of his brethren until it was—as well as curiosity, righteousness, and innocence.  Father molded all of the ingredients together, cast him up into the galaxy and watched as he exploded into a supernova of pure creation that shook the very universe at its seams before he was placed in Heaven.

The difference between Castiel’s first birth and his second, however, was that he had known his purpose and everything he needed to know had been already ingrained in him.  Now, he didn’t know his purpose and he needed to learn to survive.  He could be taught, but nothing could give him purpose but himself and it was something he craved desperately.  He hoped that if Missouri was successful he’d find his purpose once again.

In the present, Dean’s arm was wrapped around Castiel’s waist as he held him steady as he was transferred to the couch from his wheelchair so Missouri could begin retrieving Castiel’s memories.  Both sitting down on the couch, Dean’s hand moved from under his arm to the center of his back in the lightest of touches—shivers running across his skin—as Dean positioned him to lay back on the couch.

“You don’t have to do this,” Dean murmured close to his ear, breath hot on the side of Castiel’s face.

Castiel sardonically smiled as Dean moved away.  “I know, but my mind hasn’t changed.”

Dean huffed as he rolled his eyes and removed Castiel’s glasses from his face, setting them aside.  “You’re such a stubborn child, y’know that?”  He said good-naturedly without any derision or sarcasm, but there was a hint of anxiety and concern in his words.

“You and I have that in common,” Castiel deadpanned, making Dean chuckle, although his eyes were cheerless.

“Okay, boys, it’s time to break it up so I can begin,” Missouri announced from behind Dean with a frenzied air about her.

Dean grimaced but stepped away from Castiel, before turning on his heels to stand at the foot of the couch, back leaning against the wall, arms crossed upon his chest, and eyebrows puckered with uneasiness.  His eyes flickered occasionally to the basement door where it led to the panic room in which Sam was occupying of his own volition after being told what Missouri had sensed upon him.

Castiel gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile as Bobby brought over a kitchen chair for Missouri to sit on while she worked on Castiel.  Sitting down, Missouri closed her eyes before taking several deep, calming breaths, as her face slackened and her body relaxed.  She opened her eyes after several minutes and smiled serenely down at Castiel.

“Okay, Cas.  I want you to close your eyes and relax…” she began in a soothing voice, placing her hand on his brow as he closed his eyes and took in several deep breaths, body relaxing completely after a couple of minutes..  “Good…Nice and relaxed…Now, I’m gonna count down from five to zero.  When we’re at zero, you’ll be in a deep state of hypnosis.  As I count down, just go deeper and deeper, okay honey?”  Missouri’s voice wafted away gently as if caught by a summer’s breeze, echoing in and fading out as he distantly nodded in understanding.

“Five…four…three…two…one…Deep sleep.  Deep sleep.  Every muscle calm and relaxed.  ” Her voice was very far away—a faint whisper—as a scene came to life behind his eyes—pain exploding in his frontal lobe distantly.  “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” he found himself automatically replying.

“Now, Castiel.  I want you to go back nine months to right after you were resurrected at Stull cemetery…Try to remember…”—

Castiel saw Dean kneeling on the ground in the middle of Stull cemetery, head bowed miserably, beaten and bloody, and appearing forlorn. | Castiel reaching out to Dean, healing him, as Dean gazed up at him in awe. | _Are you God?_ | _No, but it’s a nice compliment._ | Kneeling down, healing Bobby.—

“Good…good…Now I want you to let your mind move forward in time, Castiel…”

Her words opened up a floodgate as pain seared behind his eyes.—

 _So what?  You’re the new sheriff in town?_ | Dean’s hair shown with gold as headlights passed through the interior of the dark Impala. | A smile twitched on Castiel’s lips— _Yeah, I like that…Yeah, I suppose I am_. | Dean upset behind the wheel, pleading— _What about me, huh?  Where’s my grand prize?  All I got is my brother in a hole! |_ _Can you stay with me?  For tonight?_ | Castiel standing over Dean as he sleeps in a motel room, fighting against what he wants and what he needs to do. | It’s the right choice isn’t it?  Giving Dean his normal life? | Squaring his shoulders, he expanded his wings, disappearing into the ether of both time and space.—

“You’re doing good…keep digging, honey…”—

A red, blue, and yellow kite flies above him in a garden. | His most favored generated Heaven of an autistic man. | Reverent peace. | Seven angels stand behind him, in front is his sister, Rachel. | _No one leads us anymore.  We’re all free to make our own choices.  To choose our own fates._ | _What does God want? | God wants you to have freedom. | But what does he want us to do with it? |_ He had so much hope, so much purpose, so much to teach his brothers and sisters. | He owed it all to Dean. | Weeks pass and everything was quiet in Heaven, orderly, almost peaceful. | Castiel was proud of his work as sheriff even though he was uncomfortable with the title given his stance on free will. | Teaching angels about free will was like teaching poetry to fish. | Watching Dean, always watching Dean in his spare time as he tries to adjust to normal life. | Fiercely missing the Righteous Man. | An angel wearing a crisp, black suit— _You have been summoned to stand before Raphael._ —

Castiel distantly felt himself shaking his head back and forth, eyes squeezed shut in discomfort.—

Castiel was no coward so he met with Raphael, the archangel that had once killed him. | _Tomorrow—I’ve called for a full assembly of the Holy Host.  You’ll kneel before me and pledge allegiance to the flag, all right? | And what flag is that? | Me, Castiel.  Allegiance to me. | You rebelled—against God, Heaven, and me.  Now you will atone.  We’ll start by releasing Michael and Lucifer from their cage.  And then we’ll get our show back on the road. |_ Horror, disbelief, and rebellion against Raphael’s words. | A bright painful blast of power. | On his back, the coopery taste of blood escapes his lips. | _Tomorrow you kneel, Castiel…Or you and anyone with you dies. |_ Rachel kneeling at his side. | _But God choose_ you _.  God brought_ you _back as a reward for averting the destruction of life.  God wants_ you _to lead us! |_ An acrimonious chuckle. | _I will stand by_ your _side no matter what shall come to pass._ —

“Keep going, Castiel…”—

The glorious Halls of Knowledge on the third level of Heaven. | _The Heavenly Weapons_. | A plan is formed, but it will take longer than twenty-four hours to achieve. | Castiel watches Dean rake leaves on the Braeden property, contemplating. | Should he tell Dean what is happening in Heaven?  Should he ask for help?  Should he tell Dean good-bye? | Sorrow.| Indecisiveness. | _Ah…Castiel.  Angel of Thursday.  Just not your day is it?_ | Crowley. | _I don’t have a soul to sell. | But that’s it, isn’t it?  It’s all of it.  It’s the souls.  It all comes down to the souls in the end, doesn’t it? |_ Castiel looks back at Dean who is picking up leaves and putting them into black garbage bags, before following Crowley. | Castiel is in Hell with Crowley.  A new Hell of corridors and long lines. | _What can I do besides submit or die? | There is a lot of angels swooning over you.  God’s favorite, buddy boy.  You’ve got what they call sex appeal. | Are you proposing that I start a civil war in Heaven? | Ding, ding, ding! |Cas, you love God.  God loves you.  He brought you back.  Did it occur to you that maybe he did this so you could be the new sheriff upstairs? |_ Of course Castiel had considered this. | _This is ridiculous!  The amount of power that it would take to mount a war… | What if I said I knew how to go nuclear? | Purgatory my fine feathered friend.  Purgatory.  An untapped oil well of every fanged, clawed soul. | What’s your price in all of this? | Just half. | Wouldn’t you rather have me in charge down here, the devil you know? | This is pointless.  Your plan would take months and I need help now. | How about I float you a little loan?  Say fifty large?  Fifty thousand souls from the pit?  You can take them up to Heaven, make quite the showing.| Tick tock, buddy boy.|_ Castiel makes up his mind as soon as he lands back on earth. | He kneels before Dean as he sleeps. | _Your sacrifices will not be in vain.  I promise you this.  Good-bye Dean. |_ He stands before Crowley in resolve. | _I knew you’d come to your senses, partner. |_ Suitcase of souls on the ground, he unclasps the locks, as white-hot power slams into his chest. | Back in Ken Lay’s Heaven, he finds Raphael, and sends a bolt of power at him. | _There will be no apocalypse.  And let it be known—you’re either with Raphael or you’re with me. |_ He stands in his most favored Heaven, surrounded by thousands of angels. | The power of the souls shrieked and bellowed in the midst of his Grace, withering, mawing, and scratching. | The angels all got down on one knee, heads bowed as they pledged their allegiance to God, Castiel, and Free Will.—

The memories kept coming at him faster and faster.—

He saw battle after battle—death tolls in the thousands. | The clash of angel blades, the exploding of Grace, the fiery fall of his brethren. | Hopelessness. | _I don’t trust Crowley, Castiel.  But I trust you and your judgment. |_ Pristine white rooms covered in blood. | Disgust. | Torturing monsters that their most trusted collected for them in their search for Purgatory— _Come on, ducky.  They’re just monsters.  Pests.  All part of the gig. |_ Castiel’s hand wrist deep in a young werewolf. | Was he doing the right thing? | Quest after quest for Heavenly Weapons, but none found. | Cutting down brother after brother. | _You are doing the right thing, Castiel.  Raphael must not win.  He wants to_ replace _God! | Look at us, the new God and the new Devil working together… |_ Surrounded by the enemy. | Fear.—

Distantly he heard himself crying out, a litany of, “ _No, no, NO!_ _Make it stop!  Make it stop!”_ as he slammed his head back.—

A white room, a drill coming at his face. | _Let’s see what we can find that’s buried deep inside you… |_ Screaming fills his ears as searing pain erupts behind his vessel’s eyes. | Pain, agony, torture. | Another white room, dripping ceiling to floor blood. | Endless days of torment and suffering and blood and screaming. | Laughter ricocheted around the room as his skin was flayed. | They tell him Raphael won, Dean is dead, and billions of humans are dead. | Castiel wishes he could cry. | So much pain. | Dean comes to him, although it’s not Dean, and plucks the feathers from his wings—scorching hot needles of pain electrifying his nerve-endings. | _Why did you let me die, Cas?  Why did you let Sammy suffer?  I used to believe in you, but now I see you are nothing more than every other goddamn monster I gank…You deserve this. |_ Dean continues on with his work, snapping delicate bone. | The master torturer. | _I should have killed you the moment I got my hands on an angel blade._ | Bone and sinew are sawed away. | On and on and on it went. | The last thing Castiel saw was the angel masquerading as Dean thread his eyelids and sew them shut— _All the humanity in them sickens me_.

***

“ _NO!_ ”  He sobbed, jerking upright and out of his trance.

His breathing was harsh and his head felt like it had been crushed in a vice.  As he brought both hands up to his face, he found that it was completely wet with tears and perspiration.  His whole body ached and he felt like dying.

_No, no, no, no, NO!_

Castiel suddenly felt the couch dip with added weight before feeling strong arms wrap around him.  The familiar scent of leather and gunpowder alerted to him that it was Dean.  Castiel desperately clung onto him, burying his face into his shoulder as he tried to calm himself down.

Several minutes later, his hysterics subsided.

“Come on,” Dean said, pulling away, “It’s late.”  He then proceeded to help Castiel into his wheelchair before pushing him to the room that they were sharing.  Closing the door behind them, Dean helped Castiel into bed, before stripping down to his undergarments.

Climbing into bed, Dean laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling like Castiel was doing.  After several minutes of just lying there, Dean sighed and turned his head to Castiel.  “Do you want to talk about it?”  He asked, worry lacing his voice.  “You were pretty…um…” Castiel saw Dean’s hand make a movement in the dark, trying to find the right word.

Castiel swallowed, throat clicking.  “No.”  His voice wavered.

“Okay.  Later then.”

Castiel felt his eyes burn again as his memories kept on assaulting him.  He felt an array of emotion, the strongest being regret.

“Why did you let me go?”  He eventually whispered in the dark.

Dean was silent for a long time.  Castiel felt him shift, moving closer to him.  Dean wrapped his arms around him before pulling Castiel to him.  Castiel’s head was tucked under Dean’s chin as he held on tightly.  “Because I didn’t want you to save me,” Dean murmured.

***

That night Dean found himself unable to sleep.  Worry mawed at his stomach, making it burn with acid.  Today had been a small victory with Cas regaining his memories but it had also been a loss.  Cas was miserable—and Dean had known he would be if he accessed those lost memories—and whatever was wrong with Sam couldn’t be helped.  It truly terrified him to think that _something_ was siphoning at his soul, feeding on him, and judging by the way Sam was acting and deteriorating, Dean could guess that the _thing_ was making way for itself to possess Sam thoroughly.  Dean wasn’t an idiot, he did watch _Angel_ and he remembered the whole Fred/Illyria debacle.  This may be real life but he could still apply fictional settings if he wanted.  It made sense after all in his crazy-ass life.

Sighing, Dean glanced down at Cas who was snuggled at his side, arms and legs around him like an octopus.  Dean didn’t want to move, didn’t want to disturb the only peace Cas seemed to be having, but he couldn’t lie still any longer.  He needed a drink and a smoke and a way to be proactive during this whole shit-storm.  He couldn’t lose Sam, he just couldn’t.  Not again.  Especially when he knew Sam was being tormented.  Sam deserved to go to Heaven when he died and drink beers with Ash and all of the other friends and family they’ve lost.  He didn’t deserve Hell and he certainly didn’t deserve this torment leading to a possible oblivion.

He needed to find a way to save his brother.

Regretfully, Dean slowly slid out from Cas and quietly dressed and walked from the room.  Guilt ate at him.  He knew he should stay with Cas.  Nurture him like Missouri told him to because he knew he was to blame for Cas’ withdrawal the last few days as he had pulled away from him after his erotic dreams of him.  However, he needed to do something, anything.

In the study Dean grabbed Bobby’s bottle of ol’ gut rot and walked out of the house and onto the front porch where he lit a cigarette and took a swig of cheap whiskey.  Leaning his arms on the old paint-chipped porch railings, he exhaled—smoke leaking from his slightly parted lips—as he shivered at the cold February winter that was always bad in the Sioux Falls area.  The sky was black tonight, small flurries of snow cascading to the already white-blanketed ground.  In the distance he saw a falling angel.  The sight made the lines on his face deepen.

Minutes passed as he drank and smoked cigarette after cigarette, trying to think up a plan of action but the only thing coming to his mind was the thought that they needed to move on.  Normally this was their only residence, but on the way to Sioux Falls from Cicero Sam finally filled Dean and Cas in on what had happened in the past nine months of them being out of the game and apparently Dean had a family history he had no clue of, a new residence that sounded like a goldmine for the hunter community, and a new prophet of the Lord residing there.

Apparently Sam and Dean were Men of Letters legacies or so that’s what the man, their grandfather, told Sam when he had miraculously turned up at Bobby’s through a closet with a demon in tow—the most dangerous demon Sam had ever met.  To make a long story short Sam and Bobby managed to get the key and location to the Men of Letters headquarters, but their grandfather, Henry, hadn’t made it as the demon, Abaddon, killed him and then escaped.  She was now wreaking her own kind of havoc these days, trying to overthrow Crowley as King of Hell and forming her own faction of both demons and fallen angels.

Bobby and Sam had tried tracking her movements, but it turned out she was too smart for that so when they tracked the demonic omens to Chicago all they found was an auction house, Crowley, and a new prophet of the Lord by the name of Kevin Tran, apparently just a kid, being tortured into translating hunks of rocks known as the Word of God.  Anyway, they managed to get the kid out and to the Men of Letters headquarters where he’s safely stowed away with not only one but two Words of God to translate for them.  Dean wasn’t sure what that meant but he did know it meant they had the upper hand, or will have the upper hand.  Maybe.

Even though he hadn’t seen the place and didn’t know what was in the residence, he had a feeling that was where they should be.  Apparently it was the safest place on earth.  Dean couldn’t believe they hadn’t already moved out there but then again Bobby did man the phones here in his old house.

Bringing the bottle of whiskey to his lips, the hair on the back of his neck abruptly stood on end.  Lowering the bottle, he eyed his surroundings and that same feeling of foreboding he felt at the hospital washed over him.  The feeling was so strong it gurgled the whiskey in his belly, making him feel nauseas and dizzy.  An ominous howl sounded in the distance.  Something was watching the house…

Pulling his gun from his waistband and Ruby’s knife out, he slowly walked back into the safety—or somewhat safety—of the house.  Oh yeah, it was definitely time to get the hell out of dodge and fast at that.  But first he needed to do something, something that just occurred to him, when the sun rose.  Either way, they were heading out of here tomorrow no matter what.

***

Castiel knew he was dreaming once again.  It wasn’t hard to deduce as he found himself back in the yellow-hued hallway in Hell, with a never-ending line of sinners before him.  He knew Crowley was here even before he saw or heard him.

“Hello again, ducky,” Crowley began in his smarmy voice, “I see your noggin isn’t cracked anymore, huh?”

“What do you want, Crowley?”  He demanded, turning on him.

Crowley raised his eyebrows.  “So you do remember, yeah?  You remember our deal?”

“Of course I do!”  Castiel snapped hands flaring out at his hips in exasperation before taking off down the hall in an angry stride.

Crowley easily caught up, chuckling, as he smacked a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, pulling him to a stop.  “Then you know you can’t back out on the deal then?  Good, good…”

“I’m sorry, but what good can I do?  I’m just a human now.  Useless.  How could I even remotely help?”  Castiel argued, while he tried to figure out a way to wake himself up, but he was new to this… _dreaming_.

“Y’know, I found myself wondering the exact same thing not even hours ago,” Crowley began with a waggle of his finger as he began to pace, “Wondering how a weak-arse human in a wheelchair could possibly break into Purgatory and defeat Raphael, but then I found the magic answer…” he smirked knowingly.

“And what’s that?”

“Oh plenty,” he paused, chuckling, “I hope you’ve brushed up on your acting skills because you’re gonna need them—“

Castiel glowered in fury, hands fisting at his sides.  “And what if I don’t help you anymore?  What if I’m out?  Entirely out?”

Crowley’s congenial face fell into a dangerous and dark look as he slunk over to Castiel where he stood up on his tiptoes to reach Castiel’s ear as he stood rigid.  Hot breath ghosted his cheek.  “Oh, you will never be out, love.”

“And why is that?”  He gritted with clenched teeth, furiously.

Crowley laughed softly.  “Because I have insurance policies, dear, and contingency plan after contingency plan.  If you don’t say yes, then I’ll order the hellhounds on the periphery of Bobby Singer’s and Lisa Braeden’s properties to attack and drag every single one of their souls to hell.  I have demons in the darkest of mucks that make Alastair seem cute and cuddly by comparison.  So consider this the mafia.  Don’t.  Fuck.  With me.  Darling.”

“So a new deal then?”  Castiel proposed as he swallowed, beads of sweat collecting on the bridge of his nose, as fear thrummed through his body, an emotion he never fully felt until now.  He had no idea how powerless and fragile he truly was until now.  He was lucky he was asleep or he would be hyperventilating again.

Crowley’s hand crept down his back and to his backside, squeezing, as he lecherously simpered.  “Of course.  I think a new deal is a must at this juncture in our relationship,” he replied before bringing his lips to Cas’, crushing them together, as Crowley’s tongue swept across the seam of Cas’ lips, before plunging into his mouth like a disgusting worm.  Castiel didn’t reciprocate, instead focusing all of his emotions down as well as the urge to be physically ill.

Crowley finally broke away after a minute.  “You’re gonna want to work on that, love,” he said with a wink before adding softly, “Human you is going to be so much fun to play with…”

Fear continued to strum up his spin at the comments, knowing the only way right now he could fight off Crowley was if he added a new proclamation about consent into the deal.  This was going to be a very, very long night of deal making.

***

Dean crept back into the house at midday, hand snaking into his jean pocket to hide the object he held that may or may not save Sam, only to find the house in a morose state of silence.  Sam was still in the panic room, Bobby was nowhere in sight, which left Cas and Missouri, who were sitting at the kitchen table, Missouri speaking softly to a distraught looking Cas who had his head in his hands as if he were fighting off a migraine.

Dean walked over to them, not sure how to feel that Missouri knew more about Cas’ struggles than he did, but he had more on his mind right now than the stricken look on Cas’ face that tore at his heart.

“Missouri,” he began, scrubbing at the back of his neck, “Can you go find Bobby and tell him to get his ass in here so I can brief y’all.”

Missouri’s eyes slid from his face to Cas’ before relenting at Cas’ small nod.  Standing with a little huff, she left the room to go get Bobby from wherever he was at.

Taking a seat in Missouri’s vacated chair, he looked over at Cas, realizing he hadn’t spoke to him since last night which only made the guilt he felt fester even more.  He wanted nothing more than to be by Castiel’s side 24/7 but he just couldn’t, not right now.  Maybe he’ll have more time when everything with Sam is figured out?  Right now he was just too split at the seams.

“Are you okay?”  Dean asked Cas as he was very so distraughtly rung out.  Cas’ hair was messier than normal, dark circles marred his eyes and the normal bright blue looked grey and dismal.  Reaching a hand out to Cas in concern, he tried placing his hand over his, but Cas pulled his arm from the table, looking anywhere but at Dean’s face.

“Yes…I’m fine,” Cas replied, his voice even more gravelly than usual.  Dean suspected from emotion.  “I just didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.”  His eyes danced in varying directions as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, which made him instantly suspicious and also quite a bit hurt, but he couldn’t get into anything right then as Missouri and Bobby were entering the room.

“What’s going on, son?”  Bobby gruffly asked, puzzlement apparent on his grizzly face.

Dean stood up.  “I’ve got a plan.”

***

Sam was barely aware when someone entered the room he was locked and chained in.  His vision was blurry, his mind whirling with images and thoughts not his own, and he wasn’t too sure if he imaged someone entering the room or not until he saw that the person looking down at him indifferently was sweet, kind Missouri.

“What…?”  He began in confusion, before Missouri shot he hand out and placed it over his mouth and nose, a cloying smell overwhelming his senses, making his eyes roll back into his head.

As if from a distance he heard the harsh words, “I know who you are and your evil will not spread again,” before his darkening mind erupted into malicious laughter at the words spoken.

**Author's Note:**

> A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven Part One Playlist:
> 
> Thirst - City and Colour  
> Not Alone - Red  
> One - Apocalyptica (Metallica Cover)  
> Hey Jude - The Beatles  
> Stay - Hurts  
> Monster - Imagine Dragons  
> Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd  
> Afraid - The Neighbourhood  
> When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin  
> Lose Your Mind - Kodaline  
> Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones  
> Moth's Wings - Passion Pit  
> Ten Years Gone - Led Zeppelin  
> Coming Home - City and Colour  
> Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) - Don McLean  
> (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
> 
> Updates are not scheduled although I'll try to publish in a timely fashion.


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